The Space Between Words: Learning When Not to Speak

This was a journal entry written on 1/16/25. It was a significant personal insight so I wanted to share.

Yesterday, while sitting in bed, during my typical morning conversation with my partner, I had a profound personal revelation that I want to document. This might be my most meta-writing piece to date. I am writing a reflection on what the practice of writing has done for me.

I am a person who feels emotions very deeply. Writing has helped me process difficult emotions that I don’t think would have been possible otherwise. Through writing consistently, I have gained more self-knowledge about the positive aspects of my personality and areas for growth.

One manifestation of feeling things deeply is I care profoundly for the people closest to me. In the past, as a consequence of this deep investment in their success, fulfillment, and happiness, I have overstepped in certain situations. For instance, when my partner is talking to me about something that is bothering her, I often have the immediate impulse to want to be prescriptive—to tell her what I think she should do to solve the problem. This impulse comes from a good place, but it often isn’t what is needed. I can tell when I have missed the mark—when the person I am speaking to furrows their brows and crosses their arms. Their closed body language mirrors their emotional state of constriction. Although often accompanied by silence, the message is clear—they no longer feel safe opening up, fearing they will continue to be misunderstood.

It is challenging for me to not do this because there are times that my advice has been helpful in the past. For example, my partner has said that my feedback on relatively straightforward things like her presentations or writing has been helpful. However, I think this really only applies to situations with limited emotional weight and complexity. Often, people just want others to listen. So, I have implemented a practice of asking, “Do you want me to just listen or do you want my perspective or advice?” Admittedly, I don’t always remember to ask this question, but it does wonders when I do.

However, I have realized that asking that question isn’t enough—specifically, in the instances when others do want my perspective on things. I came to learn from writing, that always giving my perspective isn’t my role in other people’s lives. Writing my unpublished travel essays taught me this. It is the work that I am proudest of to date. The aspect of the piece that I appreciate the most is that I tried to take the readers on an emotional and intellectual journey with me by bringing them into my inner world. I describe my experiences but did my best to leave space for readers to make their own conclusions.

The idea of letting people make their own conclusions reminds me of the role of a good therapist. They may make observations like, “I noticed…” and ask questions like, “What do you think this means?” to get their clients thinking, but in my view, their role isn’t to give advice per se. It is really to provide the milieu for lucidity in their clients to areas of their psyche that are opaque to them. Said more simply, the space to grow. Almost like how a plant needs light and room to grow. The therapist provides the sunlight and environment, but like a plant, it is still the client's responsibility to grow. One can even see humility in the way in which good therapists interact with their clients. They don’t claim to be an oracle. Instead, they function more like a gentle guide. I think people ultimately get more from the experience that way.

One brief aside :Writing this last section has shed light on how heavily my thoughts around what makes a good therapist are influenced by my reading of the great works of Carl Rogers. In the spirit of intellectual humility, I want to make that clear.

If I am an expert at anything, it is simply my perspective, and that doesn’t speak at all to my facility in giving other people advice on how to live their life. To give a concrete example, I am currently a 1st-year public health PhD student. Someone could ask me what they can do to be the most competitive for admission to my program, and I could give them advice, but the truth is, I don’t really know why I was selected. It was likely some combination of luck and my academic background.

This makes me reflect on how, as a young adult, I was really into reading self-development books, especially those written by people that I admire. I wanted to learn their secrets to success. What I am about to write isn’t the most marketable idea, but I think it is true: most of us don’t really know how we have gotten where we are in life. We would like to believe that it was through our own individual hard work (which is obviously important and a prerequisite for success), but it isn’t the full story. Life is far too complex for us to have full insight into these things.

My point with all of this is that writing has taught me intellectual humility. While we may want the best for people, that doesn’t mean that we know what is best. So, if I do end up releasing this, let this be a message to all readers that I am simply speaking from my own perspective and don’t claim to be an authority on anything but my experience.

Michael C. Onu