Yin and Yang

If the point of communication is to make a connection with someone, there are two components of a message that need to work in tandem: authenticity and kindness. Both are necessary if you want to communicate in a way that brings people together, rather than driving them apart. 

Authentic communication is more than just honesty. You can say something that’s technically truthful, without getting to the heart of what really needs to be said. Authenticity is more than factual correctness--it’s revealing all the data that’s relevant to the interaction and the relationship. What do you believe? What do you feel? What do you need? What do you fear? When we hide these things, people sense it. They may not be able to articulate what’s missing, but they know you aren’t showing all your cards, and it puts them on their guard. No one communicates effectively through a suit of armor. If  we want others to be real with us, we have to be real with them.

Like authenticity, kindness is trickier than it seems. On a basic level, it means respect, and caring, and empathy. It means giving a shit how your words make someone else feel. But subjugating your own needs to accommodate someone else’s isn’t kindness, because it’s not sustainable. It’s a gift with strings attached, and eventually it can become a Trojan Horse from which to launch an attack. Being a martyr isn’t kind. It’s a form of passive aggression that can drive a wedge between two people as effectively as active aggression can.

In the end, kindness and authenticity are two sides of the same coin--two halves of the same irreplaceable tool. To be truly authentic, with all the vulnerability that requires, is an act of kindness. To attend kindly and compassionately to someone’s needs in a way that still honors our own is a form of authenticity. Brutal honesty and passive martyrdom are not just extremes on this spectrum, they’re different beasts altogether.