The heart of conversation is empathy. It is the unseen channel through which true needs are communicated and the aperture through which highest service is delivered.
If your mind is clouded by wants or demands at the start of a conversation or if your heart is troubled by some perceived injustice, you will be short on empathy and long on impatience. And without empathy, you can only “talk to” another. Communicating, sharing and communing with are reserved unto the empathetic.
Gregory Hake 
Real empathy sees through bias – one’s own or that of another. It entails the ability to feel what another feel without being swept away by that feeling or by one’s own. In turn, this permits the discovery of areas of blended perspective, and that is the beginning of worthwhile communion and actual communication!
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So often conversations are one-sided (on both sides)! Empathy opens the door to truly giving and receiving.
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I absolutely agree with you. I’ve had the experience to be talked at and to talk at someone. Hard to say what was really going on in the other person but for me it is like trying to have two competing conversations at once. One of course is in my own head, most likely originating in my heart. If I have preconceived ideas or opinions about the person I’m conversing with, it will prevent the free flow of communication. It seems this is where the sin of judgement ruins anything new from happening. Terrific post Gregg! And yet again forgiveness and ceasing to judge create apertures for creation.
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