Babbling About Having Discernment In Hard Conversations

#228: You ever walk away from a conversation thinking, “I explained it so clearly, how are we still here?” We’ve been told that if we heal enough, regulate enough, and choose the perfect words, we can fix the disconnect. But there’s a hard limit to how far great communication can go when the other person isn’t willing to listen, reflect, or question their own story about you. 

We dig into how past experiences create a “filter” that shapes what people hear, then we flip the coin to the part we don’t talk about enough: discernment. Trauma and triggers can explain behavior, but they don’t excuse ongoing harm, boundary crossing, or emotional invalidation. We get specific about confirmation bias in relationships, what happens when someone has already decided who you are, and why you can’t out-communicate a narrative they’re committed to protecting. 

We also break down a practical distinction that can save you years of confusion: misunderstanding versus manipulation. One creates connection and repair. The other turns the conversation into a debate over whether you’re “allowed” to feel what you feel. If you’ve been doing the work, this is your reminder that growth doesn’t mean carrying someone else into emotional maturity. 

If this helped you, subscribe, share it with a friend who needs stronger boundaries, and leave a review so more people can find the show. What part hit closest to home for you?

Transcript

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We Hear Through Our Filters

Johnna 0:00

What is up, everyone? Welcome back to another episode of the Babbles Nonsense podcast. On last week's episode, we talked about something that I genuinely believe would change so many relationships if people understood it. And that's we are not experiencing conversations exactly as they happen. We are experiencing them through our own filter, whether that be a filter through our childhood lens, our past relationship lens, insecurities, fears, or even previous experiences. And learning that should make us more compassionate people. It should make us pause before assuming the worst. It should also make us ask, is that what they meant or is that what I heard? But like most things in life, there is another side of the coin because self-awareness without discernment can really become dangerous. Sometimes we get so focused on understanding why someone hurt us that we forget to acknowledge that they are still hurting us. Like, for example, last week's episode just being all about communication and the lens they're filtering it through. So that's what I want to talk about today. Because yes, in all reality, people all have trauma, people have triggers, and people have reasons why they communicate the way they do. But having a reason is not the same thing as having a free pass in our communication. So let's get into it. All

Part Two Setup And Recap

Johnna 1:39

right, guys, welcome back. So if you did not listen to last week's episode, highly encourage you do that before listening to this one. I'm hoping I can make it stand on its own, but I am gonna reference a lot from last week. So it is kind of like a part two. Because when I was ending last week's um podcast, I started thinking like, and this is just what happens every time I do a podcast. I'm like, ooh, I could have expanded more here. And I didn't want people to think like, well, first let me just kind of recap a little bit. So if you didn't listen to last week's episode, I recapped it just briefly in the intro. But basically last week we talked about perception, trauma, communication, and how every single one of us kind of walks into these conversations, carrying all our past experiences with us, kind of, so it essentially just shapes what we hear, or it's we have this filter if you think about it like if you have to have a visual thought, like you have this filter that you filter everything through before you communicate back, and this all clearly happens within milliseconds. But we also talked about how two people can hear the exact same sentence and leave with completely different interpretations of what was said in that communication, not because one person is lying um or anything like that, but because our brains are constantly filtering information through our own history, which is what I was just talking about, like those lenses. And yes, I believe all of that is true. Um, the more I'm like learning about communication journey here.

Compassion Without Self-Abandonment

Johnna 3:04

But at the same time, I do feel like there's another side to this conversation that I do think deserves just as much attention. And that's what I was thinking about towards the end of recording last week. And that's just like that discernment that I had mentioned, because sometimes I do feel we become so focused on understanding other people that we stop protecting ourselves at the same time. Um, this kind of goes back to that episode I did with me and you where we talked about like we can out therapise ourselves, like we can go out here seeking all this information and we can rationalize everything. But at the same time, I think that's where you have to have your own discernment and you have to have your own intuition and you have to follow that from what you know to be true. But I guess to kind of make it make a little bit more sense, I think understanding that people have past experiences, traumas, these filters that we, you know, communicate through. I think understanding that should ultimately make us a little bit more compassionate, maybe even a little bit more curious about someone. But at the same time, it should also make us pause before we just assume the worst in someone else, or should make us ask certain questions. And maybe that's like, is that what this person actually meant? Or is this what my past taught me to hear? And then sometimes we just become so focused on understanding everyone else that we stop protecting ourselves. And sometimes we get so focused on explaining why someone behaves the way they do that we stop acknowledging how their behavior is affecting us. And I also think that this is where a lot of people who are trying to get healed get stuck because all in all, we're telling ourselves, like, oh, maybe they had a difficult childhood or maybe they have trauma, maybe they're avoidant personality or whatever, insert the blank here you want to put there. So all of those things can absolutely 100% be true. But the important distinction is understanding why someone behaves a certain way is not the same thing as accepting that behavior. And I think that's where I was trying to talk about like discernment last week. Once we understand or come to some type of understanding of why we're communicating with people the way we do, whether that be through, you know, recognizing yourself, people telling you you go into therapy, you know, going to couples counseling, whatever it may be, just knowing and understanding that why someone behaves a certain way is definitely not the same thing as accepting that behavior. Because those are two completely different things. And we do know, like those that that trauma, that past experience, all of that can explain a behavior, but it does not automatically excuse that behavior because your compassion for someone else should never require the abandonment of yourself. And again, something I am greatly learning this year, along with so many other things. Like one of the biggest mistakes that I think a lot of us make in this healing journey that we're on is believing that if they just communicate well enough, or if you communicate well enough, or maybe if you choose the perfect words or they choose the perfect words, becoming patient during the conversation, or you know, if that other person just learned to regulate their nervous system a little bit better, that there would be more understanding in communications and conversations. But unfortunately, that's not how relationships work. We all wish they worked that way. If they did work that way, then a lot of therapists would probably be out of a job because then we would just, you know, be patient enough and say all the perfect things. But unfortunately, with all our past experiences, again, that's just not how it works.

Communication Is Only Half Yours

Johnna 6:46

Um, communication isn't just about how well someone speaks in a conversation. It's equally about how willing that other person is to listen. So if we really think about that, like in a conversation between two people, just to make this easier, um, communication is only 50% under your control because the other 50% is under the person, the other person's control that you're communicating with. And my aunt used to tell me this all the time was, you know, you can only control your actions and reactions during conversations. I know we don't have a lot of control in this life, like we we tend to think and mislead ourselves, but like in a conversation, like the control that you do have is how you respond, how you listen, how you react, you know, pausing, things like that, like that you can work on. These are all things that we can work on over time. And we all spend so much time talking about becoming better communicators. You know, that's what these past two episodes have been about. And relationships that I have, like friendships or work relationships that I have, like that's a lot of the conversation is just like how can we, you know, understand each other better, how can we hear each other better?

Confirmation Bias Sets The Script

Johnna 7:59

But almost nobody talks about what happens when we are communicating with someone who has already kind of made their mind up about who we are. And what I mean by that is like maybe someone has already given you some kind of persona or personality that they've deemed that's who you are in their mind. Like maybe you're the emotional one, the sensitive one. You know, maybe you're the one always on defense or whatever it may be, like if they already have that fixed narrative about you or about us, then it's almost like every new interaction or conversation gets filtered through that narrative or their lenses that we talked about last week. And we did talk about what this is called a little bit last week in last week's episode. Um, and it was called confirmation bias because our brains naturally search for that evidence that confirms what we already believe while we overlook information that contradicts it. So if someone feels or believes, like truly believes that you're criticizing them in every conversation that you have, then even a calm observation, like to them, like if you just call out something, may feel like a criticism to them because that's what their nervous system is ready and prepared for. Um, if for on the flip side of that, like if someone believes that maybe you're a difficult person, even if you come up with some type of healthy boundary for them in a communication setting, that can still feel unreasonable to them because you are quote unquote that difficult person. And it's not that this is like actual reality, but it is their reality, and that's the filter that they are looking at you through, communicating um with you through. And the hard truth about all of this is that we cannot out-communicate someone else's confirmation bias. You cannot heal enough, explain enough, love enough, talk enough, say the perfect words enough, regulate your emotional system enough, anything to force another person to question beliefs that they have no desire to examine within themselves. Because that is a them thing at that point. That is not a you thing. So even though we can work on all of these things for ourselves, you know, we can try to heal our communication styles and our lenses with which we see other people through and how we communicate like verbally, nonverbally, and what we can control in the conversations, like giving time to pause, giving time to think before we react and say things. That's the work we do, but that's also the work someone else has to do as well. Because healing can actually become unhealthy if we're not careful enough. And I know Mia Min you talked about this in another episode where we talked about, you know, where this generation is all on this huge therapy journey, which is wonderful, like that we can talk about mental health and you know, all these different things, but then it can become where you're, you know, overstimulated or you're not actually healing because you're not listening to um people who have credentials behind their names or whatever it may be, which could in itself start another communication war, which we will not go down on this podcast. But to try and to stay in the healthy realm of healing, when you're doing it correctly, and obviously there's no quote unquote correct way, like everyone has their own journey. But I'm just saying, like when you are healing and you know that you're healing, it does truly teach empathy to others, even yourself. But when you're healing unhealthily, if that is a word, unhealthy, if you're healing unhealthy, then that empathy can turn into self-abandonment. Um, because the more we become so understanding of everyone else's wounds, we tend to stop acknowledging that we have our own. And then we try to feel or try to become these experts at explaining away behavior for someone else that is consistently hurting us. Because what I've learned like in researching this and learning this and doing this podcast, and something that it's kind of been interesting to me, is that just because we don't like, you know, intend to hurt someone's feelings or um maybe someone is more sensitive than our personality, we can't be experts on how they're feeling because we aren't in their body, we don't have their past experiences. So to tell someone their feelings in a conversation are wrong is just wrong in itself. And again, I say all of this with caveats, right? Because

Misunderstanding Versus Manipulation

Johnna 12:28

you can have someone who is manipulative, who is playing on your emotions, and then that turns into a whole nother situation because I think that's where we do have to separate like misunderstanding someone from manipulation because they can look really similar, and that's where it can get confusing because you're like, Well, I'm doing all these things and I know I can't control them, and I've you know, I'm doing all these the the right steps that my you know, my life coach or my therapist or whatnot have talked about. But to break it down a little bit, like a misunderstanding sounds more like I didn't realize that's how that came across. Help me understand, like that might be something someone says, and manipulation sounds more like you're the problem for feeling that way. So you kind of have and they're not gonna say it that directly, you're gonna have to, you know, kind of read between the lines and which statement is leaning towards which, because at the end of the day, we all hurt people, but healthy people care about the impact of their actions when they're saying something to someone. They may explain their intent, but they don't use their intent to erase your experience. Like just like I said earlier, we don't sometimes we don't intend to hurt someone's feelings, but it still does hurt someone's feelings, and we cannot then say your feelings shouldn't be hurt for this. You know what I'm saying? And then on the flip side of that, like a manipulation statement tactic, whatnot, might sound more like that wasn't what I meant, so you shouldn't be hurt, kind of like I just said a minute ago. Um, because one of these creates more connection in your communication and the other one creates a little bit of confusion. So now instead of discussing what happened in that moment, we are probably defending whether you had the right to feel anything at all, and then you that's where that manipulation tactic where everything is kind of flipped. But enough on that because that was a long side tangent from the unhealthy and healthy communication and not um creating self-abandonment. Like, so examples that maybe you can ask yourself during conversations if you're not really sure, is this you know, manipulation, is this misunderstanding? Um, am I self-abandon abandoning right now? So you can instead, like, instead of saying, like, why is this person acting the way they are or communicating the way they are, we can ask, what is the behavior consistently, like whether it be in communication, you know, physical actions, costing yourself? Because both of these questions do matter and you can kind of find some discernment by asking yourself that. Because

Growth Requires Two People

Johnna 14:58

healthy relationships do require two people that are willing to examine themselves. One person cannot do all the introspection while the other stays convinced they're never part of the problem. If there's going to be growth within a relationship, then this has to exist on both sides. Like it just, it just cannot. Because without communication, like and growth on both sides, then repair can't happen. And repair has to also exist on both sides. One person cannot constantly be repairing, you know, a bad communication, a quote unquote misunderstanding or whatnot. And then in this same aspect, accountability has to exist on both sides because other otherwise one person will keep carrying that emotional weight for the two people, and then eventually that relationship just collapses. Because if you think about that over time, like that's with anything, like you just kind of give up. And that's well, I I don't want to say give up because you've tried. So that's not the right words, but like that's where people fall out of love and people think it's one instance, but it's really just been this growing thing over time because of like maybe one person's carrying the burden or one person feels like they're, you know, only trying to grow within the relationship. And it doesn't have to be 100% zero, it could it could be 90%, 5% all the time. But remember, that's a consistent thing. Like it's not where the people talk about like if I'm giving 50, you give 50, but today I'm giving 40, you give 60, and tomorrow you give 60, I give 40. That's a healthy, balanced relationship. We're talking about when it's a consistent, you know, 100 zero, 90, 10, 80, 20 all the time. That does wear on a person. Like if you think about it in a career way, if you went to your job and there's two people there, and you're 90% of the time given most of the work, and the other person's only getting the work 10% of the time, and then they get to leave early, go sit by the pool, you know, go on vacations and it's paid because they just don't have as much work, then you that other person becomes resentful. And that happens through anything, like work, relationships, um, chores, whatever you want to put in there, it that's just a natural feeling. And one realization that did change the way I look at relationships was that this overall arching, like someone can genuinely love you, like genuinely love you, but they can still lack the emotional skills necessary to have a healthy relationship with you and you know, or have a healthy communication style with you. Because loving someone and then having the emotional skills necessary, you know, to communicate, to have a healthy relationship isn't the same thing. Love isn't the only requirement in a healthy relationship. I think a lot of self-awareness does matter there as well as like humility and you know, being curious and having the ability to say, you know, maybe I did misunderstand or, you know, maybe I contributed to this problem or communication. And, you know, if if you can say, let's look inward first before we start attacking someone else, I think those qualities, well, for me anyways, also matter just as much because you can't, like I just said, like you can't love someone into the like future. Everything everything that has a reaction has an equal reaction. That's just the nature of the game.

Healing Means Clearer Boundaries

Johnna 18:16

Um but the goal of healing was never becoming someone who tolerates more. The goal was becoming someone who recognizing recognizes unhealthy patterns sooner. And there's a huge difference. Healing shouldn't make your boundaries weaker, it should make them clearer in communication. So if you've been doing the work on yourself and, you know, learning a lot about emotional regulation or improving your communication style, maybe it's even taking accountability, I encourage you to continue doing that because that 1,000% matters. But just don't confuse your growth with your responsibility to carry someone else's because you are only responsible for your side of the conversation. You are not responsible for dragging another adult into emotional maturity. Some people simply aren't ready to be there in their lives and maybe they'll never be ready. And that's okay too. That's their journey. And sometimes we're just on two separate journeys. And sometimes the healthiest communication is also recognizing when the conversation no longer has two willing participants, because it then just turns into an argument and no one's hearing each other. Because relationships aren't built by one person becoming healthier, they're built when people are willing to grow together. And if only one person is doing all that work, that relationship eventually stops becoming a partnership and starts becoming emotional survival. So just knowing that, knowing the two and discerning for yourself and trying to just be the best version you can be in whatever capacity that means for you. So yeah, I'll end it there. That was a lot of babbling this time. I hope any of that made sense to view. And if it did, great. We will try to come with some more fun and light podcasts in the next couple weeks. Um, we'll see. Again, don't my life is crazy, work is crazy. And whenever we have time to sit down and record, or if something pops into my mind, that's what we do. So until next time, guys. Bye.