They Got Your Words Right — and Completely Misunderstood You
Have you ever had someone repeat your exact words back to you and somehow still completely miss your point?
It's invisible and it happens all the time. It can look like this:
Your boss summarizes the project you completed in a way that completely leaves out all the late nights and family events you missed in order to deliver it with the excellence it deserved.
Your spouse responds to the tone in your voice, rather than your actual request. Now the whole conversation is about how you said it and not what you actually needed.
Your doctor asks how you've been feeling. You start explaining, the fatigue, the way your sleep's been off. He's already typing before you finish the real reason for your visit. He nods, eyes on the screen, and says "okay". You know he's stopped listening and already made his conclusion. You never got to the part that actually worries you and he's already on to his diagnosis.
These are times where what they repeated is correct. But the full meaning, the entirety of your experience was ignored.
And, even though it's prevalent, I was surprised when it played out on a big stage.
Recently I was watching a well known podcast where a woman with a large online following was one of the guests. She shared what happened for her during that podcast taping.
During the taping, she described years of effort in her marriage, initiating hard conversations, doing the exhausting work of repair, showing up again and again even when it would have been easier not to. She said something about wanting her husband to be her "knight in shining armor."
The therapist, the expert on the panel, took that one phrase she used about wanting a partner who'd show up for her… and swept 16 years of her efforts under the rug.
She instead singled out the "knight in shining armor" phrase and used it to talk about messages women absorb from romantic comedies and the danger of expecting people to read our minds.
The therapist created a tidy lesson about unrealistic expectations. A cute soundbite about what women get wrong.
It wasn't that her response was inaccurate. The guest indeed did use that phrase.
But you and I both know, while it's what she said, that's not what she meant.
The years of effort and the meaning behind her words completely disappeared.
What got repeated were her words. What got missed was this woman's full experience.
And I've been thinking about that a lot since I've watched the podcast.
Because this is a pattern I see repeatedly in my work as I partner with high achieving, deeply attuned women.
We're competent, disciplined, and highly self-aware. We're responsible and take accountability for our actions.
We read the books to learn more. We build the habits to feel better. We've truly done the work.
And in spite of all we do right, we're still exhausted in a way that doesn't match our efforts.
Here's what I keep coming back to:
That exhaustion rarely comes from the work itself. Yes, you're doing a lot. But, I also know you're capable of doing more than most.
It's most likely coming from doing the work for years and never having it fully seen and reflected back to you.
Maybe that shows up as exhaustion for you. Maybe it shows up as frustration, or a resentment you can't quite put your finger on.
Either way, you've probably said this to yourself: "They don’t get me."
Here are two examples of how this plays out, Notice what your body feels as you read each.
Here's the scenario: Picture yourself having just pulled off a product launch that was two weeks from falling apart. You rebuilt the timeline twice, managed a vendor who dropped the ball, and worked three weekends straight to get it done. It shipped on time. Your boss stops by your desk the next morning.
Response 1: "Great work on this. The client's thrilled."
Response 2: "Great work on this. The client's thrilled. I saw what you needed to do to get it done. You missed family time to get this done right. And you saw issues and fixed them so that they never ended on my desk. I don't take that lightly. This mattered, and so did what it cost you."
Same project. Same outcome. Very different experiences.
My guess is, with the first response, you wanted to keep explaining yourself. You know you don't need an atta girl every time you do good work. But, honestly, no one else on the team even lifted a finger. You were the only one moving this ball down the field and all you got was "Great work?"
Now, let's talk about how you felt after reading through the second response.
With this one, I bet you had no urge to re-explain. No urge to help your boss understand the entirety of your efforts. He just got it.
That's the difference between being complimented and being witnessed.
And it plays out for high achieving, deeply attuned women every day. All. Day. Long.
There's a difference between someone acknowledging what you did and someone understanding what it cost you to do it.
Response 1 was quick and easy. It takes a sentence.
Response 2 took attention.
And the truth is that most systems, most families, most relationships, most rooms, aren't built to offer that level of attention.
The second response was an example of what I call Complete Witnessing.
I built it on a simple idea. Seeing what someone did isn't enough. To completely witness someone, you have to see what they did, understand what it cost them to do it, and let that cost matter to you.
That's the piece that often gets skipped in marriages, in doctor's offices and in boardrooms. And also during a public taping of a well known podcast with a trained therapist.
So here's two questions I'd encourage you to ask yourself.
When has someone repeated your exact words and still missed your point completely?
What did you actually need in that moment?
I can imagine you didn't need to be quoted correctly. You just wanted to be understood.
And if you'll allow me to go further, ask yourself how many people are truly there for you, in the same way you are for them.
I'd guess that it's sadly out of balance. And it’s not because you don't know how. If anything, you do a beautiful job of witnessing others.
You've been accurately reading rooms all your life. Your skill was never the problem. The reciprocity was.
And this is where it can hurt. You're there for everyone else but no one's there for you in the same way.
When I first noticed the imbalance in my own life, it not only hurt deeply, it felt like a double bind.
Because you and I both know we can't change people. And just because we want and need to be completely witnessed, doesn't mean we can make anyone do it.
But there's good news here, because the benefit of witnessing best comes from within.
Yes, we feel seen and understood when someone else witnesses us, and that feels lovely.
But, when done consistently, self witnessing has even more power.
Picture yourself sitting in your car after work, your keys still in your hand. You're just not ready to go inside and face the second shift yet.
And in that quiet minute, you say it to yourself. "I see what I did today, the wins, the fires, the things nobody else clocked. It mattered. I see what I gave up to do it, the time, the energy, the parts of the day that went to everyone but me. And that cost matters to me."
And you sit there and allow yourself to fully feel the acknowledgement and praise.
The truth is, no one needs to witness that version of you who showed up today. You get to do it for yourself.
That's self-witnessing.
It's actually the thing you already know how to give everyone else, finally turned toward you.
The truth is, we won't be witnessed like this every day. Not by our bosses. Not by our freinds. Not even by people who love us.
That's exactly why The Check In matters.
It's the daily practice of offering those four parts of Complete Witnessing to yourself. Not all at once, and definitely not perfectly, just consistently, building the evidence that you can count on yourself to show up... for you.
The Check In isn't a meditation. It's the entry point to a necessary conversation, the one you've been waiting for someone else to start. It’s now in your power.
The Check In’s not on my website yet, so if you'd like it, just reply or email me at lisa@livingfullybalanced.com, and I'll send it your way.
Lisa Bobyak founded Living Fully Balanced LLC because she got tired of watching brilliant women break themselves trying to maintain excellence, in part because she'd been one of them. For over a decade, she's worked with high-achieving, deeply attuned women who are doing everything right. Competent, disciplined, and highly self-aware. Armed with strategies, protocols, and solid habits. The level of their exhaustion doesn't match their effort to feel better.
If you're a high-achieving woman who's tired of working harder at your own wellbeing than you work at everything else... you don't have to break yourself to prove your worth.
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