Have you ever spoken into a microphone to an audience?
Especially the first time, it can feel unnatural, because the mike amplifies us, instead of our having to do it.
We quickly learn to keep this amplification in mind.
If we speak too loudly, our voices will become distorted, and we will hurt the ears of others.
Speaking to those who love us supplies a different type of amplification.
We matter to close family and friends, and this intensifies how we come across to them.
Most people lack awareness of the extent of this emotionally increased impact, which leads to innumerable conflicts and heartbreaks.
Any expressions of dissatisfaction are intimately amplified in the listening of those who care about us.
Like a speaker with a microphone, speaking loudly to intimate others sounds like shouting to them, while shouting sounds like yelling, and yelling sounds like screaming.
Both the perception of our volume and the meaning of our words become amplified through such intimate amplification.
Saying “I’m unhappy” may sound like “You are making me miserable.”
Saying “I don’t like this” becomes “I hate this.”
Asking “Why did you do that?” becomes like saying “You are a disappointment to me.”
This effect is not the result of hypersensitivity, although that would certainly add to it, but it is the unconscious result of special people caring a lot what we feel and think about them.
Accordingly, I often urge people to speak the truth to their friends and family, but gently.
Speak as if you were amplified by a microphone, but one charged with emotion rather than electricity.
Happily, intimate amplification works with any sort of message.
Your words of love, admiration, and support are also amplified in the listening of those who care about you.
What a rare power we have to inject joy into the hearts of those we cherish!
Your efforts are automatically multiplied when it comes to boosting the happiness of those you most care about, if the caring is mutual.
This joyful amplification occurs just as automatically as the negative version and even in people who prefer not to show it, like older children.
Knowing this, who is someone whose day you could make memorable with a gentle, but intimately amplified, message of fond appreciation, perhaps right now?
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