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Misinterpreted emails have gotten me into trouble on more than one occasion. People were not meant to communicate via email or text messaging. Digital communication is impersonal because it lacks tone of voice and a person on the other line. It instantly makes content sound harsher than it otherwise would. Without the emotion in the sender’s voice the reader is forced to put their own spin on the written words- and this is where the trouble begins. The message can get lost which can cause a lot of misunderstandings and unnecessary drama.
A personal example of this happened the other day when my cousin Jen left me a few voice messages reminding me about a dinner we had spoken about earlier. I had a project deadline coming up, had to pick up the groceries in order to make dinner and had to pay my visa bill before they started charging me 18% interest. Although I usually try very hard to live a relaxed, simple lifestyle sometimes the planets line up and dump a stack of high priority tasks right in my path. Needless to say I didn’t have much time to talk on the phone. So I figured I would send her an email. It would be quick, she’d get the message and she would be happy since I had replied. It sounded reasonable to me. So I sent her an email message typing it in the warm, friendly tone of the voice in my head, but scrambling to get it written, so I could head out.
Can’t make it. It’s really busy.
I forgot about this and carried on with the task at hand. When things slowed down and I hadn’t heard from her for over a week I called her.
“Hi Jen”
“Oh… it’s you”
“How are you doing? I’ve been meaning to call and catch up”
Pause … “Ah ha…”
Pause on my part “Is something wrong?”
“You know you didn’t need to blow me off like that! That email was so rude.”
Whoa, stop right there. What on earth just happened? Oh yes, one of the most common and easily avoided digital miscommunications. When Jen read my email, it came with the tone open to interpretation. She didn’t hear the friendliness in my voice, she thought I was being rude and didn’t want to see her.
Most people have the innate ability to pick up on what others are feeling. Evolution has molded us so that much of our communication is non-verbal. People pick up on tone of voice, body language and other subtle cues in one another. The actual words that we say are only a portion of what we use to communicate. How often can you tell when someone is making a sarcastic comment or feel their dissatisfaction with something? The unenthusiastic checkout girl doesn’t need to do anything for us to pick up the fact that she’s not happy. Or we run into a friend and their greeting “Hi!” makes us feel their excitement and enthusiasm.
Imagine what happens on a telephone when our highly evolved senses that are finely tuned to pick up the slightest facial gestures and recognize the slightest emotion in the voice now has to interpret speech without visual cues. It’s a little harder, but we still do a pretty good job because we can hear the other person’s voice. Now take away the sound of their voice, as in an email, and try to interpret what they are saying, how they are saying it and what they mean by nothing more than words on a screen. This is where things can go horribly wrong. For example, the word “Sure” can be interpreted as
Sure. I’m unhappy but I’ll do it.
Sure. Yes, absolutely, I’d love to. You are fabulous.
Sure. That’s not true. I think you are wrong but I don’t know how to tell you so instead I am half heartedly agreeing.
Etc…
You get the point.
So now which one does your brain pick if you are reading an email?
Emails leave way too much open to interpretation. If you are used to teasing someone in a friendly way, it’s just a plain bad idea to do it in an email. I have accidentally offended friends of mine by innocently sending a joke in an email that was completely taken the wrong way. “Buddy, you stink” might be funny in person, “Buddy, you stink” is a bad idea in an email. Things can just end up sounding mean. That being said, “Buddy, you stink” isn’t very nice anyways so lets just not tell people they stink unless we’re doing them a favour by letting them know. In the case of personal messages, or bringing up something that may cause conflict, in person or on the phone is best.
Emails aren’t always a bad choice and there are (a few) situations when they come in handy. They are great when you need to get in touch with a lot of people for event details with a factual message (corner pub, 8pm). It can also be useful for business or work since it allows people the time to reply at their own leisure. To make an email feel warmer and more personal always start the message with “Hi [Fill in reader’s name]”. People are more likely to have a positive reaction to a message started like this.
If the worst happens and you’re crammed into a corner, are short on time and have no choice but to send a personal email or text message just be cautious. Now that I’ve learning my lesson the hard way, whenever I write an email, I make sure to pad it so thoroughly with 
) happy faces and lols that my reader feels like they are being baby talked to. In which case they may still take it the wrong way and think that I’m treating them like a child… It’s just that much safer not worrying about being misunderstood. The savings in damage control are worth the extra precaution.
Getting a good night’s sleep is high on my list of priorities. I do all of the recommended things to improve my sleep. I do my best to get to bed and wake up at the same time, start to unwind a few hours before bed and avoid caffeine. Despite this I’ve often found my sleep to be very active, with a lot of dreaming and waking up. My mind works out my problems while I’m asleep. This is why I was so impressed by how deeply I slept after one particularly effective EFT session.
One night while staying at my parent’s house, my mom and I had a fight right before bed. I had asked her not to eat my chicken sandwich that I had made for my lunch the next day, she said she wouldn’t and as soon as I walked out of the room she ate some. Come on, it would make you mad too! It was a good chicken sandwich!
After we had pretty much worked it out, I still felt like there was some frustration there so I started EFT (emotional freedom technique) tapping. I just wanted to process anything that came to mind so I started out with “Even though [insert: whatever is bothering me] I deeply and completely love and accept myself”. So I started out with “even though my mom ate my chicken sandwich I deeply and completely love and accept myself”. After peeling away a few more layers of beliefs I got to a very deep, personal belief and tapped it out. I felt like I had gotten to the bottom of my issue and wasn’t upset anymore. I closed my eyes and was out like a light.
After EFT tapping out all of that powerful emotion I fell asleep at 11pm and didn’t budge again until 9am! I slept 10 hours straight, didn’t wake up once and it was such a deep sleep I don’t even remember a single dream. What a fantastic breakthrough with EFT, I’m interested to see if my sleep stays this good.
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