How to Get Someone to Talk About Their Feelings

Vance Crowe [00:00:10] Welcome back to the podcast. I'm glad you're here. Well, last week I put out a podcast about how to become a better conversationalist. And wow, I got more comments on that podcast than I have in a long time. People wrote me and said they loved it. They told me they sent it off to their children. I even heard a person say, my wife doesn't normally like your podcast, but she loved this one. You should do more just like it. So I, I can take that feedback. It's good, the numbers, bear it out. You loved it and you sent it to a lot of people. And that makes me feel really good. We've been kind of experimenting with different things to talk about to make the podcast as valuable as possible. I'll probably be back in the next few weeks doing interviews, but right now, I am enjoying just sitting down and sharing some things. I've been learning about communications. What I wanna talk about this week is how to get people to talk about their feelings. Now, I'm not saying that you can just run around and ask people about their feelings, right? There's always an appropriate time and place, but the reason that I'm bringing this up is there's a lot of times in our lives when we have a person that we're encountering, it could be a stranger, somebody we've just gotta work with because they're employing us for something. Or it could be a loved one, a spouse, a child. And if you ask them, what is it that you are thinking about? What is it that you're feeling? They won't tell you. Now, why won't they tell you? It could be that they're trying to hide it because they don't wanna bring these things up, or they'd rather move past it, or they feel as though they don't really like to talk about their feelings.

Vance Crowe [00:01:49] But I think oftentimes the reason that people don't like to talk about their feelings is that they don't actually have the words to describe the things that they're feeling or the things that they're feeling are nebulous and complicated. And to try and discern out those feelings, it's usually a combination of several things. And so to put it into words doesn't feel right. I kind of liken it to, if I were to pull out cinnamon right now, or the smell of a lemon, if I was to say, not, not what is it, but what does it smell like? The only thing you could do would be to give it an approximation. Well, it smells like citrus. Well, it smells like a spice, right? It puts you in that genre, but it doesn't say specifically, and it doesn't really describe something deeply. So how is it that we can get people to talk about their feelings and what's the value of it? Now, I'm not suggesting that you should ask people about their feelings in order to psychoanalyze them or to even change what they're feeling, but I think if you're anything like me, when somebody is feeling a strong emotion, you selfishly have this desire to know, you know, is this about me? Did I do something? But there's also something really valuable about just being in sync with another person about understanding where it is that they're coming from. And that way you can better understand, should I empathize with them? Is there something I can do that would make them feel better? Is this something that just needs to happen? And it's good to be aware of, but regardless, let's just imagine that you have a good reason for trying to get them to open up.

Vance Crowe [00:03:24] One of the key things that I've learned through doing Legacy Interviews, and really I learned it from my mentor, Pete, is that if you can't put something into words that's going on directly inside of you, you can use art to help you bring those things out. So what I love doing when I'm talking with somebody is to put something in front of both of us and ask them a very simple question. What do you see when you look at this? I actually had a friend to do this with me the other day with an advertisement, a beautiful advertisement. It actually had a microphone, and you could see the background of a recording studio, and it had this very beautiful font. And he said, what is it that you notice first? And we start talking about what it is that I notice. And he asked me questions like, well, how does it make you feel? And I could tell, well, it makes me feel a little jealous that that looks so nice. It makes me feel a little bit excited that you could make something so polished. And so we start talking about that. But you could do this with anything. It doesn't have to be an advertisement In the legacy interview studios. Before somebody's gonna talk about their life and what's going on with them and and the stories that they want to pass down, I have them look at a portrait of, well, I don't really wanna spoil it. I call it the Woman on the wall. But I have her look at it and I say, what is it that you see here? And then after they describe for me what it is that they see, I ask, how do you think that person feels? And when they begin to do this, when they describe what this person is feeling, the portrait is vague.

Vance Crowe [00:04:56] It's really difficult to say definitively what that person is feeling. So there's some combination, some relationship, some conversation that's happening between the artist and the person experiencing the art. And the person experiencing the art will say things like, she looks tired, she looks weary, she looks focused. Whatever it is that she is, the person that's experiencing it is feeling that saying, this is what she is going through. That's some relationship. And when people start talking about the feelings of the woman on the wall, then it's much easier for them to look at themselves because they've been able to distance themselves from, this is what I'm feeling. And being able to put it onto her allows them to talk about something that maybe would've been uncomfortable if we were talking directly about them. Now, art is not always a Rorschach test. This isn't a perfect synonym for what is if what the art is feeling is what I am feeling. But it does give you an opportunity to be able to open up conversations. So if you've ever been the type of person that says, eh, I'm not really into art, or, I'm not really the type of person that likes getting into this stuff, I'm gonna say, maybe just approach it again. The great thing about art is that it takes us out of our normal lives. You know, in our normal lives, we see a huge amount of things and we ignore almost all of it. Almost everything in our view, we don't pay attention to at all.

Vance Crowe [00:06:30] And in fact, our eye has to have this involuntary shaking to make sure if we're staring straight ahead for too long, the eye shakes to make sure that you do keep it lit up. Because if you're taking in information that the brain deems is not important, it will just darken it. You won't notice it. So what we actually notice when we're looking with our eyes are obstacles, things that are gonna get in our way or be they're out of place, or tools, things that we want to use, things that we could apply something to. And so when you're looking at art, the best thing is that art has a frame of some sort. Now, this could be the frame of a painting. It could just be the outside of the sculpture. It could be where the boundaries are of the fountain, but we always know this is where the art begins, and this is where it ends. And so this allows you to focus on things and that focusing, when you ask someone what is it that you see? It allows them to take what's going on with them and what the artist put forward. And it allows you to bring things out so you can hear things that are going on behind the scenes inside of a person. And this will allow them to open up in ways that will make it much easier for you to approach the emotional conversation. What are you thinking about? How are you feeling? Because to go from how does this make you feel? To how are you feeling is a much smaller step. So this week, you are going to be encountering people that are feeling things, right? You yourself are gonna be feeling things too, but it isn't.

Vance Crowe [00:08:01] Don't just wait until you're finding somebody in a bad mood. In fact, if they're in a really bad mood, this doesn't really work. But find somebody that's experiencing some kind of emotion. You don't really know what it is, and try and find a way to ask them, what do you see when you look at this thing? Whether it's a piece of art or an advertisement, like I said earlier, see what they say and then see if you can bring out emotions based on what they've said. And if that opens up a deeper conversation with them, my guess is if you do this two or three times, you'll begin to realize what the cadence is and the right way to ask these questions. And you too can use this to be able to get people to open up to talk about things that are inside of them. They would love to share, but they don't really have the context to. Alright, I'm gonna wrap up there. Thank you so much for listening. If you are interested in having me sit down with a loved one

Vance Crowe [00:08:55] To record their life stories and their values to get them to open up and give them the context that they can share the things that matter to them so that future generations know where they came from and know the stories of their family, then go to Legacy Interviews dot com to find out more. I hope if you enjoyed this episode, you share it with some people and send me a note even if this is something your spouse did or didn't like. You can do that at Vance at Legacy Interviews dot com. All right, we'll be back next week.