were capable of then that would cut through the behavior with
the metamessage, “You are not OK.”
My guess is that you respond to people according to what
you think they believe about you. What we give others is often
what they choose to connect with. Of course, the converse is
true—what we get from others tells us a great deal about what
we are choosing to connect to within them.
A metamessage is the sum total of many factors, including:
❏ The timing of what we say.
❏ The environment in which we say it.
❏ The medium we use.
❏ What we wear.
❏ The extent to which we use the language and the preferred
senses of our target audience.
❏ What is not said.
❏ What is presupposed in what we say.
❏ The metaphors we use.
❏ Our beliefs and the way we communicate them.
❏ Our awareness and sensitivity to others’ needs.
All of these elements and more add up to an overall message
that is “read” by the unconscious and sometimes the conscious
minds of our listeners.
By understanding how the elements of our metamessage fit
together and how they are filtered by the people with whom
we are dealing, we can begin to establish the influence we are
having in everything we do.
METAMESSAGES 149SUMMARY