"The right words" don't exist. You exist.

Sometimes I get questions about how to handle specific situations.

“How do I get X to do Y?” “How do I respond when someone says Z?” “How do I tell A that I don’t want to see them?”

And of course I can offer suggestions.

But.

Sometimes we believe that if only we knew the right words — and said them — things would go the way we want.

Many of the tips floating around are of this kind.

“Say these words and you’ll bring X down.” “This is how you cut off your annoying colleague.” “Say this to come across as cultivated”, and so on.

We’re also instructed in what to do with our hands, how to tilt our head, how to stress the words, and so on.

The underlying assumption is: if we “do it right”, we’ll succeed socially. And I can see how nice it would be if everything were that simple.

Unfortunately, it isn’t that simple.

Leaning on rules of thumb can be a relief in difficult situations. Rules give good support then.

But in the long run, interpersonal interaction is too complex to figure out situations in advance.

Sure, we may sometimes think we succeed, by guessing the right words.

The problem is that the success is only on the surface. No one really has fun or is genuinely moved when parties interact from that starting point. No real bonds are made that way. This is because the quality of the interpersonal connection — what NVC people call “connection” — remains low.

It isn’t because you said the wrong words, the right words at the wrong moment, or forgot to spread your arms.

It is what it is because you don’t show up.

You’re trying to put forward what you think the situation requires. But there are no words and no body language that, if only you did them, would work, if you aren’t there as a person.

What do I mean by that?

To begin with: I don’t mean you should disclose details about your private life. It’s entirely possible to spread out private details without showing yourself a single time.

It’s also possible to talk about the weather with an interpersonal connection and warmth that nourishes us deeply.

So it’s not the content that does it.

What does it is that the words coming out of your mouth originate from a radically different process than one that consists of trying to “say the right things”.

You can’t sit protected behind a fence and calculate the most effective combination of words to lob over the fence to your counterpart, to see if the effect was what you wanted.

In general, we humans know intuitively — even if not consciously — when someone is faking it.

What you need to do is practise stepping out from behind your shield, showing yourself, taking the risk of expressing your honesty. And staying there to receive the other person’s honesty. And do this, back and forth, and see where this flow takes you.

It’s when words come from this kind of process that our words and body language are an integrated whole. Others can intuitively trust who we are.

We then also honour ourselves as inherently presentable people, we honour our longings and the things that make us unique.

It isn’t always easy. We need some training even to get to know our own inside, and learn how to put words to it.

But also because it’s vulnerable. Shame can take a hold of us, and it’s easy to hide if we haven’t yet learned how to handle it.

Maybe you’re one of those who has an unconscious “agreement” with yourself, which you signed once and thereby promised yourself never to show yourself (again). Not let anyone see who you really are, what you long for, what moves inside you. Maybe you were met early on by others in a way that made it safest to live like that. Maybe it’s so frightening that sometimes you don’t even know what your truth is. The body has clever ways of protecting us, like dissociation.

My point isn’t that you should now treat this protection as an “enemy” to overcome. The protection is also a part of you, and it too needs to be integrated.

For example by finding situations where you can practise at a manageable level of difficulty. With someone you already feel safe with. With someone whose opinion you don’t depend on as much, etc.

Over time you can raise the difficulty. We get good at what we practise, so stick with it. It makes a difference over time.

I myself practise every day.

If you do this, you’ll eventually also be able to discern when it isn’t the right moment to show yourself. You learn to adjust how much of yourself you show, depending on who you’re talking with, what you want, and what other needs you also want to take into account.