The science of communication: real resonance lives in awareness, not in the words

If communication were only a matter of hearing the words, then by rights talking to one another should be clean, clear and easy.

And yet sometimes every word a person says is correct, the logic holds, even the conclusion is right — and we still cannot take it in.

The reverse happens too. Someone says nothing more than "mm" or "I get it," offers no explanation at all, and you come away feeling you click with this person, that you are on the same wavelength, that the conversation landed.

If communication really were just about words, why would a single line of a song make someone cry? Why would so many images and feelings unfold in us that the words never contained?

Your right hemisphere knows before you do

From the point of view of neuroscience, when we listen to language, "two brains" are working at once:

A baby, for example, can tell from a mother's voice whether she is gentle or hurried, at ease or unsettled, long before learning what any of the words mean.

Researchers have found that reading these non-verbal signals is the earliest and deepest communication skill we develop — which is another way of saying that your awareness is an instinct older than language.

Sometimes we think, "What that person said was perfectly right, but something about it felt off." That is instinct reading the room. As they speak, your left hemisphere is analyzing what they said, while your right hemisphere has already picked up what state they are in.

When the two do not match, of course it feels strange, as if something is not quite right — and perhaps you are not overthinking it. Perhaps your awareness is reporting back that something here does not fit together.

Why does one line of a song make us cry?

"Let's never be apart again," spoken out loud, is probably just a promise. Set it to a melody, add music and rhythm, and it brings back a particular person, a particular moment.

The words themselves are only six words long. But music opens the right hemisphere's channel for taking in the whole of an experience. Studies have found that when we listen to music, the brain regions handling emotion, memory and instinctive response light up strongly.

When music and lyrics arrive together, the left hemisphere works on literal meaning and the right hemisphere on the layer of feeling, and between them they gather the whole experience into something larger.

That is also why a song in a language you do not speak can still move you. What is really speaking is not the words. It is the frequency.

The same machinery is at work in everyday conversation. We are simply so used to putting words in the leading role that we forget awareness has been working away underneath the whole time.

Resonance in conversation is the science of frequency, not mysticism

We say we click with someone, that our frequencies match. It sounds abstract, but at the level of the body it really is happening.

Watch for it yourself. With one person, does your breathing slow down and everything feel steady? With another, you have done nothing in particular and yet you come away drained.

That is not your imagination. Your body genuinely did, or did not, find the match.

Neuroscientists use a technique called hyperscanning to record the brainwaves of two people at once while they talk. What they find is that when two people are genuinely connecting, really hearing each other, their brainwaves gradually begin to resonate — like two tuning forks that were vibrating separately and start to vibrate together once they are brought close.

More interesting still, as the nervous systems fall into step, heartbeats gradually sync and breathing quietly matches too. Neither of you is doing anything in particular; the body simply follows. That is the most concrete scientific picture we have of being in step with someone.

So "our frequencies matched" is not mysticism. It is two bodies in conversation. And for it to happen, you have to be the steady one first — because the other person's awareness follows your frequency.

How do you get steady? When the qi flows, things flow — translating qi into science

The old saying that things go smoothly when the qi goes smoothly sounds very Eastern and very abstract, but it maps onto something quite concrete: when you are steady enough, and your autonomic nervous system is not on standby for battle —

The other person's awareness picks up a clean frequency. They do not need to keep their guard up, so they can open up and speak freely — and the conversation flows, the collaboration flows, the relationship flows.

Rather than practicing how to say it, practice the state you are in

We spend a great deal of time learning communication techniques, learning to express ourselves, learning to speak. That matters; it is what lets us say what we mean.

But before any conversation begins, what really decides whether resonance happens is the state you walk into it with.

You can say a hundred correct words and reach a hundred correct conclusions, but if what the other person's awareness receives is a frequency of anxiety, defensiveness or distraction, they still will not be able to take it in.

The other way round, you do not need to say much at all.

If you are steady, if you are present, if your energy flows — the other person's awareness will pick it up, and resonance happens right there.