When the Communicator Can’t Communicate

For someone who’s been trained and developed in communication, who teaches others how to communicate —

wow, do I lose my footing sometimes.

It’s not performative humility. It’s just the truth.

I have the language, the tools, the training — and still, there are moments I cannot seem to say what I mean. Or I say it, but it doesn’t land. Or it lands, but not in the way I intended.

And those are the moments that undo me.

Not because I’ve done something wrong — but because I can feel that what I did… didn’t work.

It didn’t build connection. It didn’t open space. It didn’t honour what was alive in the moment.

It left something unfinished. Or unspoken. Or shut down.

And that’s the ache.

To be someone who teaches communication, and still find myself clumsy in the practice of it — especially with the people I love most.

There’s a particular kind of heartbreak that comes when you see the gap between what you know and what you do.

When you can feel yourself reaching for a better way, but an old pattern grabs the mic first.

When the body speaks faster than the heart can catch up.

Because communication doesn’t start with words.

It starts in the nervous system.

In the small, silent pulses of “Am I safe?” and “Do I belong here?”

In the clenching jaw, the held breath, the flicker of fear behind the eyes.

When I’m activated — even slightly — I don’t reach for the tools I’ve learned.

I reach for whatever once helped me survive.

Maybe that’s retreating into silence. Maybe that’s trying to control the outcome. Maybe it’s softening my truth until it disappears entirely.

And none of that is wrong — it’s just what no longer works.

It doesn’t work to speak from fear and expect to be heard with love.

It doesn’t work to pretend I’m fine when I’m not.

It doesn’t work to armour my voice and then wonder why no one feels me.

What works — when I can remember it — is slowing down.

Pausing long enough to notice what’s alive in me.

Choosing to stay in the room, even when I want to run.

Letting the moment be messy, imperfect, uncertain — and still choosing to reach across it.

I’ve had conversations that opened something sacred, and others that collapsed under their own weight.

I’ve used words like balm, and I’ve used them like blades.

But the most healing moments I’ve ever known didn’t come from saying it “right” —

they came from choosing connection over performance.

They came when I said, with my voice still shaking:

“That didn’t come out how I meant it. Can we try again?”

They came when I stopped trying to sound good and started trying to be with.

With the other person. With the moment. With myself.

That’s what I’m learning — again and again.

That communication isn’t about perfection.

It’s about presence.

It’s about repair.

It’s about noticing what didn’t work, and being brave enough to try something else.

So no, I’m not here to be the expert in the room.

I’m here to be the one who keeps coming back to the table,

keeps softening when it would be easier to shut down,

keeps choosing what works — even if I get there slowly.

Because the truth is, I don’t need to be a perfect communicator.

I just want to be someone who knows how to return.

To the conversation.

To the connection.

To myself.