Communication without judgment

We think of a conversation as an exchange between two people. Look closely and it is often something else: an exchange between two verdicts. Before the other person has finished speaking, we have already decided what they are like, what they really mean, and whether they are right or wrong. We are not listening to them. We are listening to our judgment of them, and responding to that.

This happens so automatically that it feels like simply seeing clearly. He is being defensive. She is not listening. They always do this. These conclusions arrive dressed as facts, and once they are in place, the actual person in front of us disappears behind them. We are now in conversation with a character we have cast, not the human being who is speaking.

The other person we never meet

Here is the strange part. The person you are judging is also, at the same time, judging you. They too have cast a character, and it is not quite you. So two people sit across from each other, each talking to a version of the other that exists only in their own mind. It is a wonder we understand each other at all.

This is why so many conversations feel stuck. We are not really disagreeing about the topic. We are defending ourselves against the character the other person has made of us, while attacking the character we have made of them. The real people never quite meet. And the more certain we are of our reading, the less we can hear anything that might revise it.

When you are sure you know what someone means, you have stopped listening to them and started listening to yourself.

Setting the verdict down

Communication without judgment does not mean approving of everything or having no discernment. It means noticing the verdict you have already reached, and setting it down long enough to actually hear. It means holding your reading of the other person as a guess rather than a fact.

You can practice this in a small, concrete way. In your next difficult conversation, when you feel the verdict forming, pause and get curious instead. Ask what they actually mean rather than assuming you know. "When you say that, what are you wanting?" Listen for the need underneath their words, not for the flaw in their argument. You will be surprised how often the person you were braced against turns out to be asking for something quite reasonable, expressed clumsily, as we all express things.

The shift is inward and it is small, but it changes everything downstream. When you drop the verdict, the other person feels it. They feel met rather than managed, heard rather than handled. And a person who feels heard softens. The defensiveness you were reacting to often dissolves, because it was, in part, a response to being judged in the first place.

What opens up

Conversations held this way go somewhere. Conflicts that seemed permanent turn out to have been misunderstandings wearing the costume of disagreement. People tell you more, because it is safe to. You learn things about those closest to you that years of judging them had kept hidden.

And there is a relief in it for you, too. Carrying a verdict about everyone is heavy. Being right about them is lonely. When you stop needing to have the other person figured out, you can simply be with them, curious about a person who is, after all, as complicated and as trying-their-best as you are.

So before your next hard conversation, try one thing. Notice the verdict you have already reached about the other person. And ask yourself: what if I do not actually know what they mean yet? What might I hear if I listened to find out?