You can explain it. It just doesn’t come across the same.
You can explain it.
That’s not the problem.
You remember it clearly.
You can find the words.
And if someone asked, you could tell the story.
But somewhere in the telling…
you can feel it.
A slight shift.
Not enough to call it out.
Not enough to stop.
Just enough to know that what’s being heard
isn’t quite sitting well with your audience.
So you adjust.
Not deliberately.
Not even consciously.
You soften certain parts.
Leave others out.
Choose words that will come across more easily.
You make it… palatable.
And again, it works.
The conversation continues.
The moment passes.
Everything appears to sit where it should.
Except the experience itself.
That part doesn’t quite settle.
Not because it was misunderstood.
Not exactly.
More because something was lost in translation.
The meaning.
The sense of it.
The part that didn’t quite belong to language in the first place.
Edited, just slightly
into something more comfortable.
More easily received.
And most of the time, that’s how it goes.
Because there aren’t many places where you can say something
exactly as it was…
without adjusting it for the room.
(This is something I’ve been exploring more intentionally in the Listening Circle.)
Especially when it sits outside the usual lines.
Unusual.
Meaningful.
Difficult to categorize.
Not dramatic.
Not even particularly strange.
Except when it is.
Just… not easily labeled.
So it gets shaped.
But every now and then, there’s a quiet awareness:
That the original experience
didn’t need to be shaped at all.
It just needed somewhere it could be spoken
as it was.
Not explained better.
Not interpreted more clearly.
Just… received.
And there’s a kind of relief in that.
A subtle one.
Not having to hold the edges of something
while you speak it.
Not having to translate it as you go.
Just letting it exist
in the presence of others
without needing to become anything else.
There aren’t many spaces where that happens.
But when you find one…
you can feel the difference.
Not in what’s said.
In what doesn’t have to be changed.
That difference is something I’ve been thinking about lately.
If you’ve ever had an experience like that…
you’ll likely recognize it.
-Sherri
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There aren’t many spaces where something can be shared without being shaped as it’s spoken.
This is something I hold space for in the Listening Circle.
👉 Learn more about the Listening Circle here: A Listening Circle