….Here’s What’s Really Going On!
Have you ever walked away from a conversation at work, with a partner, or even your best friend, feeling confident that you’d both understood each other, only to discover later that you’d each taken away something completely different? You were clear, you expressed yourself as best you could, and in your mind the message landed. Yet when you revisit it, the reaction you receive seems to belong to another conversation entirely.
Suddenly you’re left wondering whether you misjudged your tone, overexplained, underexplained, or somehow invited a misunderstanding you never intended. It’s frustrating, of course, but more than that, it can feel quietly invalidating, even isolating and if we were to pay closer attention, many of us would realise that these moments happen far more often than we’d like to admit.
We Don’t See the World as It Is, We See It as We Are…Really?
One of the most transformative lessons I took from my NLP training was realising that every person moves through the world guided by their own internal filters. These filters shape how we make sense of conversations, experiences, and even ourselves. They aren’t faults or flaws, they’re simply the way our brains survive the overload of daily life.
This idea, at the centre of NLP’s communication model, helps explain why even the most articulate, well-intentioned people can talk past each other. Communication isn’t just about the words; it’s about the world each of us brings into the conversation (and we all have our own model of the world based on those pesky filters!)
Let me explain…
Your Brain Is a Master Editor
In every moment, your brain is bombarded with information. Sights, sounds, memories, emotions, micro-expressions, often layered on top of everyday tasks like planning dinner or navigating tomorrow’s workload. With millions of pieces of data arriving at once, your brain has to step in as an editor.
It deletes what feels irrelevant, distorts what doesn’t quite fit, and generalises to keep you safe and efficient. What remains becomes your internal “map” of reality, your unique way of understanding the world. Much of what shapes this map sits beneath the surface, past experiences, emotional patterns, protective habits, old stories you no longer consciously think about but still carry.
These invisible filters influence your experiences and how you interpret what someone else says… and how you expect them to hear and interpret you (below is a simplified version of the Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP), communication model):
Why Misunderstandings Feel So Personal
This is why two people can share the same moment, use the same words, and walk away with entirely different meanings. When someone responds in a way you didn’t anticipate, it can hit a deeper place than the conversation itself. Sometimes the reaction you feel isn’t about what’s happening now, it’s about what the moment touches inside you.
Misunderstandings can prod at old wounds you’ve tucked away; they can awaken beliefs you’ve tried to move past or protective mechanisms that were built long before the present moment. When you realise this, something shifts, you’re no longer trapped in the automatic emotional response and you gain the ability to pause, breathe, and choose how you want to respond.
Understanding Others Without Losing Yourself
Recognising that everyone carries their own “model of the world” isn’t about letting poor behaviour slide or swallowing your needs when other people take up too much room. It’s about creating just enough space to step out of the initial sting and see the wider picture.
You can pause before reacting and, you can soften internally, not to minimise yourself, but to create room for clarity. You can consider what might be shaping the other person’s response, not because their view is more important than yours, but because the presenting problem is rarely the actual problem and because understanding is the ground where clearer communication grows.
Curiosity naturally replaces defensiveness when you acknowledge that everyone is hearing through their own filters and conversations that once felt tense or circular begin to feel more grounded and honest.
Being Heard Begins With Hearing Yourself
For many of us, especially women who’ve spent years people-pleasing, mediating, caregiving, or proving our worth, the real challenge isn’t speaking up, it’s about us trusting what we say.
There is a quiet inner knowing that often speaks long before the words do and you might recognise showing up as a tightening in your chest, a heaviness in your stomach, or a sense of discomfort that something simply didn’t sit right. These aren’t inconveniences to push aside; they’re valuable forms of intelligence.
How many of us wait for someone else to confirm what we already sense?
I want to remind us that self-validation is where everything begins and when you trust your internal cues, when you allow them to matter, you begin to communicate in a way that is clearer, steadier, and more grounded. You no longer need to over-explain or apologise for your perspective and you’ll notice that you stop shrinking yourself to keep the peace.
Something powerful happens here and the more fully you hear yourself, the more naturally others begin to hear you too.
You Don’t Have to Prove Your Perspective
Being heard isn’t about being louder or more persuasive and it’s not about winning an argument or convincing someone that your experience is the only reality. It’s about recognising that your perspective is valid simply because it’s yours.
When you hold that truth with confidence, you communicate differently. Your voice steadies, your boundaries become clearer, and you speak with a kind of quiet authority that doesn’t demand understanding but invites it.
A Moment to Reflect
Think about one area of your life where you often feel unheard. What might shift if you gave yourself permission to truly hear what’s going on inside you?
