There is a famous study by Dr Albert Mehrabian about nonverbal communication. You may have come across this already. Based on our likes and dislikes, he concluded in his study of face to face communication that…
This I find pretty scary considering that most people now communicate by text or emails and based on the above percentages, we could be misinterpreting a lot of the texts and emails we receive as we can’t see the person and can’t hear their tone. I find that sometimes, when I receive an email that I’m not quite sure whether the person was joking or serious, I watch myself being careful how I answer them. After reading back my reply, I realise that it could be misinterpreted as well. I bet you have felt this, too, sometimes. I usually put ‘ha ha’ after a comment so the person knows that I’m joking because I have a pretty warped sense of humour. And for those who know me well, I can laugh at some things that nobody else finds funny. I attribute this to God who – I think – gave me my mind, my consciousness and my view of reality.
Back to emails. How many of you have had an email or text message and totally misinterpreted the comments and thoughts as the person meant something else? I think sometimes emails and text messaging are a very dangerous way of communication. Not only because you don’t get to see the body language and hear the tone of the person but even the words can be totally misinterpreted as well.
I remember conducting a philosophy class on a Monastery Taiji School Retreat about the difficulty of language, where I demonstrated this by using only one word and asked everybody in the room to describe what that word meant to them. There were 30 different answers. (By the way, the word was ‘courage’.) We seem to only be able to relate to a word depending on our own experience and learning of what this word means to us, which in itself is quite scary.
I explained to the class what I thought and even then everyone had a different idea of what they thought I was saying. And the interesting part of it was that I might have meant something totally different to what they thought I had said. So, as a teacher, how hard it can be to get the students know what you really mean and not necessarily what you said.
As you read this, there is a good chance that you only think you know what I’m trying to say and you don’t even get to see my body language and hear my tone to help you work it out.
Maybe I‘d better ring you, for at least you can hear the tone of my voice.
I read the ‘Power of Now’ by Eckhart Tolle (an amazing book, a must read if you haven’t already) and then I got the audio book. Well, what a different understanding I got by listening to his voice from when I read the book. My mind read the words and tried to interpret what he had written. But when I was listening to the audio book, I could hear him and I understood more of what he was trying to say in words and I could hear what he was really saying. I could hear it in the tone of his voice. Or as much as I could understand anyway.
In Chinese Medicine, we are taught to listen to the voice of our patients to hear the quality of the sound of their voice. For example, to listen for any power behind the voice and quality of their words. Over the years, I have become fascinated by the tone of the voice and I use it as a major diagnostic tool in assessing my patients level of energy and health.
I think we all listen to people’s tone to some degree. An example of this is with our kids. When they ask us a question, we can tell by the tone if there is another question that they really want to ask and are not being up front about it. I used to say this to my daughter, “Hey don’t beat around the bush, just ask me what you want”. Then she learnt to do that and I love the directness of that.
So, tone is everything to me in communication. That’s why I like to phone or even better video call when I want to talk to someone in person. Talking to each other seems to have become a dying art but I think video call has become more popular now.
There is a bit of a flaw in the theory that the tone holds the real meaning of the conversation. If a person really thinks what they are saying is true even if it’s not and truly believe in what they are saying, it is hard to pick that up in the tone. There can be no waver or hesitancy in their tone. If a person lies a lot, they can become very convincing in their stories. I think the medical term is ‘compulsive liar’. They really believe what they are saying. I have met people who do this.
I enjoy listening to tone of voices and I do this by listening to my wife, Josephine, singing. I can tell whether her voice is at full power and I can hear how she is feeling as she sings. I can hear it in my own voice and whether I’m confident or not, or whether I’m down on my energy or not.
Tone, what a great subject. If you want to know more about it, let’s talk face to face about it, then you might get a deeper understanding of what I mean to say, which may not be what I’m actually saying.
Cheers,
Pete C
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