critical thinking: report like a camera
Weed Out the Drama, Report Like a Camera
Oftentimes we unknowingly use persuasive speech in an effort to get our needs met. If you read our previous post with the I’m Telling Myself practice, you may remember that there are layers of perceptions and judgments loading our thoughts. When left unchecked, these pour out into our speech. In my opinion, this is the space where much unnecessary drama and conflict live.
This practice helps us scrub our assumptions and sensationalized drama from our speech. Why make this effort? For me, it is all about getting real and connecting with others through facts, not fiction.
Listen for the difference:
“She never listens to me.”
“She is looking through her backpack while I am talking.”
In writing group sessions and workshops, I’ve learned the technique of “show don’t tell,” which can give the author credibility and establish mutual respect between storyteller and reader. The author trusts the reader’s critical thinking and imagination to take the details she is providing to draw their own conclusions, make their own perceptions, and apply their own form of meaning. To use this technique, we include concrete details, information that comes straight from our senses, without interpretations. This technique puts the reader right into the scene, in the sensory experience of it. It allows us to experience firsthand and draw our own conclusions.
I live by a notion that each of us is our own authority on our experience. I don’t want anyone else interpreting my reality for me. I use practices like this one to try not to interpret anyone else's experience. Out of respect for myself and others, this and other mindful and compassionate practices help me live more fully into this notion.
Some love drama. I love authentic connection. If you do too, try this.
It is very similar to our “I’m Telling Myself" practice (an integration and iteration of Robert Gonzalez’s and Cindy Wigglesworth’s practices with the same name- refer to our newsletter/blog post from 1/8/24 for more information). In Marshall Rosenberg’s four-step conflict resolution process, Report Like a Camera is the first step, “observation without evaluation.”
This practice requires us to describe an event with sensory, concrete, details. We report like a camera, not a sensationalizing reporter. We scrub our description of judgments, exaggerations, and drama.
Listen for the difference:
“Out of rage, he slammed his dish down on the counter.”
“The dog’s head raised off his bed when the boy’s dish met the counter.”
What different kinds of assumptions do we make about the boy’s character in the first example and in the second? Can you see how the way we speak persuades and informs others? Is it possible that our mood, our thoughts, our limiting core beliefs are spreading fiction in the ways that they influence how we tell the stories of our lives to ourselves in our thinking and to each other in our speech? There is a bit of self-fulfilling prophecy that can happen when we leave our interpretations left unchecked. For instance, if the narrator has unhealed trauma and responds out of fear at the loud noise, to a high enough degree, that fear can make her immediately angry. Her interpretation of the boy’s rage may be a projection of her own feelings. Unless there are other clues from the boy, we don’t know if he is angry or not. If she assumes he is angry and treats him as such, what feeling do you think he may have as a result? It is possible that the dish slipped out of his hand. Can our more accurate speech bring about more understanding and less conflict? If this is playing out in real time, we can even check with the boy. “Did the dish slip or was that an intentional drop?” When we are retelling it, at the very least, we can be responsible about how we are portraying his character with our word choice.
I wish more people asked me how it is that I have such peaceful and respectful relationships with each of our children, "even through the teenage years" as some have put it. My answer is this practice. Our relationships had very little drama and assumptions and projections. In some ways, I think Report Like a Camera and I’m Telling Myself and great prompts in a memoir-writing group have allowed me to relive much of my own teenage years, scrubbing them from the drama I imagined and bringing me much more acceptance, compassion, and inspiration.
Follow instructions on the card below to try it for yourself.
Through our newsletter stories and practices and on our blog, we share the practices that bring us joy, connection, empowerment, mutual respect, and meaning. We hope that each of you; as readers on a healing journey, or as folks hoping to live more effectively, find these simple tools and practices helpful.
Report Like a Camera
Describe events with sensory details, not sensationalized reporting.
Follow up with your first draft of what happened.
While the primary goal of the practice is to scrub the story of sensationalism, the secondary benefit can be to pay homage to your feelings, perceptions, and patterns of thinking. When you are honest about the layers of judgements and perceptions you have, you can honor them and discover layers of unhealed grief or unprocessed trauma. Rather than shame yourself for having these layers, you can work through them, giving them less and less influence. Imagine how much easier the practice gets when you heal the source of some of the internal programs that were likely installed long ago to protect you but are no longer serving you. The more you do this practice the better equipped you are to heal your past (possibly with a professional's help) and the more likely you are to be more authentic and connected.