I once met a young man who had difficulty holding a conversation with a woman. He wanted to get into a relationship, but whenever his type of lady walked into the room, he didn’t have the courage to initiate a conversation. If she spoke to him first, he got cold feet and excused himself. Needless to say, this wasn’t getting him anywhere.
We often believe that if we don’t say how we are feeling, people will not know. Invariably, people catch our energy and feel the same way about us. The world of the unspoken is mysterious indeed. Ironically, it is far more accurate than the spoken world.
People stop trusting you when you hurt them. If they believe you did so consciously and intentionally, then even more so. If they think you are a person who breaks their promises, doesn’t live up to commitments, manipulates them or speaks about them to others, they are skeptical about you.
Research on persuasion shows that our neurology is linked to the words we use. If we speak about the positive qualities in others, our listeners associate those same qualities with us. This information is being used in training people on how to be more influential. The trainees are asked to speak about the qualities that they want their listeners to see in them.
When people hurt you and you don’t speak up, you feel bad about yourself. You probably wonder if speaking will do any good. What if they laugh at you or say that you are too sensitive?