A Look At Unfuck Your Communication

The "No Subtext" Rule

So I am working on edits for Unfuck Your Communication right now, and one of the things I included is my five in-office communication rules with clients. As I’ve discussed in other books, I include practice-based evidence as much as I share evidence-based practices.

Meaning…this is the shit I have been using for years that works really fucking well most of the time.

I am including one here. Not all five because I’m a tease and also because while the other rules make things a little harder (at least until you get use to them), this one immediately makes everything So. Much. Easier. Because it really needs to stop being our job to figure out what other people mean when they are deliberately not saying what they mean. I’ve . heard to it referred in more recent years as “ask culture instead of guess culture.” As in speak what you want and don’t expect others to figure it out.

The idea is people are responsible for communicating their wants and needs. Doing so is incredibly difficult for many of us who had our wants and needs dismissed over the years, but the frustration over *NOT* figuring out how to communicate directly is far worse for us in the long run. Hence the “no subtext” rule:

# 2 No subtext.

People with trauma histories and people with neurodiversity issues (and especially those of us with both) will tell you that subtext confuses them. You know what I mean. The implicit messages that people do not explicitly state. Like saying “fine” when things are not fine. It’s exhausting to try to interpret what people really want when they just won’t fucking tell you, isn’t it? Even for those of us without these histories, wading through subtext is exhausting.

And what if we stopped? What if—hear me out—if someone tells us “nevermind,” we just….neverminded? Think back to the four levels of communication thing from Part One. The fourth level is “what we think they mean.” But what if we just took it at face value? That puts the onus for clear communication back on the other person. Don’t scramble to figure out what someone wants if they hit you with a fine that is anything but fine. If someone says “I’m FINE!” Just say “oh good, I was worried you weren’t…I’m glad you’re ok, and let me know if that changes.” And the same goes for us. If shit ain’t fine, we don’t say it is fine while expecting others to figure out what we really want.

Baby Nephew still has sales and stuff going on in the Etsy store. It’s his 21st bday this week and he’s sharing the celebration with y’all. And he’s making auntie go to karaoke this weekend when the extent of my karaoke capacity is to be a backup singer for whomever wants to pull a Fred and sing the B52s “Love Shack". I can tease my hair like Kate and sing “bang, bannnnnnnnng” but that’s about it. We will need much liquor to survive me doing any more than that. And before you ask, there will absolutely not be video.

San Antonio is in the same cold snap as the rest of the country. We get at least one every winter, but still aren’t ever prepared…especially due to our shitty ass power structure. ERCOT has already warned that there is an 80% chance that the grid will fail again. Because of course we didn’t resolve the issue after Snovid 2021. I now have an emergency preparedness box labeled “Fuck ERCOT.”

Because fuck ERCOT.

Here’s hoping the world doesn’t shut down for a week like last time, when I was in pick up lines for bottled water from the National Guard.

Le sigh,

Auntie