When Actions Speak Louder Than Words
The challenges of navigating mixed messaging
Someone may tell you they’re not ready to be in a serious relationship and yet they’ll call you everyday and constantly try to spend time with you. Someone may tell you they don’t usually get along with people, and yet here they are trying to build a friendship with you. You may be in a work environment where there are stated policies and procedures, but no one actually follows them. What are we to make of situations like these? How do we make sense of people saying one thing and doing another?
Sometimes we respond by ignoring what people are saying and only paying attention to what they’re doing. We take the path of least resistance, or put our focus in the place that is in most alignment with what we want to hear, but that doesn’t necessarily make it true. When we disregard messaging that clearly contradicts what we want for ourselves, we are violating our own boundaries.
We have all been in situations where we don’t want to believe the truth of what someone is saying. The facts of the matter don't feel good, so we want to believe something else. I once heard a woman say that a man loved her, not because he had ever said it, but because of how much he seemed to like spending time with her. Sometimes people are just looking for companionship, that doesn’t mean they love you. We have to pay attention to people’s actions as well as their words, and if we feel as though they are contradicting one another, we need to ask questions to get clarity.
People send mixed messages because they think if they’re honest they won’t get what they want. It can be really challenging to tell someone you’re in a relationship with, “Hey I really like spending time with you, but you’re not the type of person I want to be with long term,” or for an employer to tell their employees, “This is a very demanding job. We expect you to work way into the evening and not spend a lot of time with your family. We really need you to be on call at all times.”
In order to have more integrity around our communication with people, and avoid mixed messaging we need to be clear, and provide a complete picture of what our wants and needs are. We need to give people the option to hear our full truth and make a decision for themselves about whether or not they would like to move forward.
Journal Prompts
How can you be more clear about communicating your needs and wants to the people in your life?
When have you received mixed messaging and how did you determine the truth of the situation?
Read
The Way of Integrity: Finding the Path to Your True Self, by Martha Beck. You can find this book on Amazon and Bookshop.
Watch
Dying Young. I’ve been watching a lot of 90s movies, and this is one of my favorites. In the movie a woman played by Julia Roberts, is dating a man who has cancer. The man insists that he can’t date because he’s dying, but they still pursue a relationship. It’s such a good movie. You can watch it on Hulu or HBOMax.
What experiences do you have with mixed messaging? Tell me about them in the comments below.
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