Love between Equals by Polly Young-Eisendrath

Author:Polly Young-Eisendrath
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Shambhala
Published: 2019-01-14T16:00:00+00:00

PARAPHRASING

Paraphrasing is an empathy skill. It requires concentration and equanimity and it leads to a clear statement of how you understand what the other person said. Concentration—single-pointed awareness—allows you to track what your partner is saying. Equanimity—calm and centered acceptance of your own feelings and internal agitation—allows you to recall and say what your partner just said. Paraphrasing is the act of stepping back from your own defensiveness and reactivity. It opens the space to a mindful gap in which you can both feel your own feelings and concentrate on your partner’s words and feelings.

True paraphrasing, like true empathy, means that you try to step into your partner’s experience and infer what it’s like for your partner. It is not parroting, as in, “I’m hearing you saying blah, blah, blah,” where you simply say the words back. Instead, it sounds like this: “It seems you are feeling insulted when I say you don’t know what you’re talking about and you would like me to say more openly that I disagree with you if that’s the case. Did I understand?” At the end of paraphrasing, the responder asks the speaker if the paraphrase is correct and has gotten the picture the speaker is trying to present. The responder is actually trying to step into the speaker’s shoes and not simply repeat back the words the speaker said. If a responder is unable to do more than parrot back the words, that’s still better than just defending oneself. If the responder can’t really understand the gist of what the speaker is saying, the responder can also say, “Could you please say that again because I feel a little lost.” Again, this needs to be an I-statement instead of something like, “What you said was too complicated.”

Paraphrasing is at the heart of minding the gap. As a listener, if you are able to simply feel your feelings and hold on to equanimity, you should have enough concentration power to track what the other person is saying, even if you disagree with or oppose the other’s statement. At the conclusion of a paraphrase, the speaker may say there’s more: “I would like to know if you are implying that I am silly or uninformed. I guess I didn’t ask you that, but now I would like to know.” Here the first speaker has introduced another topic, a question about how the partner actually feels about the speaker’s competence. The responder can say, “Wait, I would like to respond to your first statement first,” or can answer the question. Generally, paraphrasing works best if it’s done in small chunks. I often think of dialogue as a conversational dance in which the first person speaks, the second one responds and clarifies and sees if it’s correct, then the listener has a chance to respond or reply to the opening statement.

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