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Full hypnosis download Talking with tact

Some years ago a relation, not that young himself, saw another very frail distant relative at a family gathering. Without stopping to think, he blurted out: “Good Heavens! I thought you were dead!” Okay, that’s not the worst faux pas ever, and the elderly woman to whom this greeting was addressed saw the funny side (warped humour in our family), but she had just lost (and I don’t mean mislaid) her husband.

We hear a lot about ‘straight talking’, ‘telling it like it is’ (or how we think it is), and ‘honest communication’. And that’s all well and good, but sometimes – how can I put this tactfully? – you really do need to engage brain before activating mouth. Over-impulsive speech can offend, and may damage self esteem if this is already fragile. Tact is a tool. Like any tool, you don’t have to use it all the time, but you need to be able to recognise when it is needed and to use it when the need arises.

So what makes people tactless?

Insensitivity and impulsiveness

It’s okay for a young child not to be able to put themselves in someone else’s shoes, but an adult who cannot do so is likely to be unpopular – and to be misunderstood where their intentions were in fact decent enough. Sensitivity means extending the mind into the situation of another. Just because I myself would not be offended or embarrassed by a certain comment or action doesn’t mean that so-and-so feels the same.

Impulsiveness is another big problem. One tactless woman I helped told me that sometimes when she wanted to speak she could barely contain herself, so eager was she to ‘have her say’. But as soon as she’d spoken, she’d realize that the word, like the bullet, cannot be pulled back once fired.

Greater tact brings greater depth

Diplomacy, sensitivity and tactfulness give added depth to personality and allow for real understanding and connection with other human beings. It means seeing and respecting them as they are in themselves, not just as slightly distorted reflections of oneself. Developing the ability to be more tactful and ‘second guess’ what another person would really like (or dislike) – even if their likes are quite different from your own – means that more and more people get to feel ‘really understood’ by you.

This is true humanity.

The new download Talking with tact, freshly recorded for hypnosisdownloads.com, aims to relax and inspire anyone to develop their capacity for deeper tact and less impulsiveness – because ‘shooting one’s mouth off’ can cause needless pain and misunderstanding.

All the best

Mark