I’m sometimes honestly shocked by how we don’t communicate.
We avoid.
We hide.
We stop speaking to each other.
We hold back instead of clarifying. We assume. We guess. Eventually, people who once liked or respected each other end up disliking or even hating each other, not because of some big event, but because no one stopped to say: “Wait. What’s going on between us?”
Sometimes it’s easier to pretend everything is okay than to ask a simple, human question.
As a somatic and leadership coach, I see this all the time in teams, friendships and even families.
The nervous system speaks before the mind catches up. When tension rises, people either go into an associative state – deeply identified with the story and emotion or into a dissociative state – where they emotionally disconnect and observe. Both states have their place.
Sometimes, especially in emotionally charged situations, the best thing you can do is not react. Just observe. Stay present. Breathe.
Ask yourself:
- What’s really going on here?
- Not just in them but in you.
Please remember – dissociation isn’t the same as indifference and neutrality isn’t avoidance.
I see people working together, saying “good morning” with a smile, attending meetings side by side, all while holding a quiet grudge or judgment in the background. They are pretending to respect each other, when the truth is: something happened that was never named.
That unspoken tension leaks into the culture. It affects performance, trust, creativity and well-being.
We don’t need to over-communicate or talk about everything. We need to find ways to stay human in the process. That means taking ownership, regulating our nervous systems and learning to communicate.
