Mirroring Benefits

© Al Turtle 2004

 To the One Who Mirrors

1. Know what to do, no matter what is said to you.
2. Know how to slow down a person speaking to you.
3. Have a delay between hearing something and having to respond.
4. Break the habit of interrupting.
5. Show involvement with the speaker (interest), without any kind of agreement.
6. Develop boundary skills to keep what you are hearing separate from what you are thinking.
7. Have your beliefs comfortably different from your partner’s. Permits diversity.
8. Remove the mistake of miss-hearing.

To the One Who is Being Mirrored

1. Know that you won’t get interrupted.
2. Know that you can get to finish your point.
3. Have a delay after you say something, so that you can review and say it better.
4. Have time to focus on what you are thinking and trying to say.
5. Have help at saying what you want, accurately.
6. Break the habit of speaking to yourself only, when another is present.
7. Develop the habit of thinking of your audience while speaking.
8. Assures you that your listener is actually listening. You are being heard. 
9. Allow you to say tough things, clearly.
10. Develop boundary skills, that your words are yours.

To Both speaker and listener.

1. Develop habits of patience.
2. Develop individual boundaries and boundary skills.
3. Reliably stop all arguments.
4. Reliably stop all yelling.
5. Vastly improve communication.  Normal 16% increases to 96%.

Mirroring Drawbacks

1. Not familiar, awkward
2. Conversation appears much slower.
3. Takes discipline.
4. Requires patience.

A Ghost-Speaker

You’ve heard of a ghost-writer.  This is someone who helps an author to put their ideas into a clear and publishable form.   A person who will mirror is a ghost-speaker – someone who helps the speaker put their ideas into clear and understandable forms.