Looping Tip #3 – Looping the Speaker’s Emotions and Non-Verbal Communication

When people speak, paying attention to the words they use to communicate is only a part of understanding what they are trying to express.  Various studies have found that nonverbal cues comprise 80-93% of what is communicated.  So when we loop, if we loop only the words that people are using, people will often not feel very well understood.  Looping their feelings may require us to use our own feelings to pick up what the speaker is trying to express.  One way to loop the feeling is to name it.  Sometimes, the most effective way is to feel and show the feeling as we loop back the content of what was said.  Because looping has a self correcting mechanism, if we are wrong in guessing what the feeling is, we’re still likely to reach a greater understanding since we are pointing to the emotional level and the correction will hopefully be at that level.  So as long as you don’t decide you are right, don’t be afraid to take a chance to loop the feeling.