The Translation Layer
On finding the language that bridges what we mean and what can be heard
Hello! How are you doing today?
After yesterday’s negotiation, I’ve been thinking about translation today, and not the kind that Duolingo can help with. More, it’s the kind we do constantly without even realising it - which if that’s the case means it should almost be a nontranslation…but what I mean is the work of finding the layer between what we’re experiencing and what can actually be communicated.
I notice it most acutely in my conversations with my husband. I’ll say something that makes perfect sense in my little mental world. It follows directly from thoughts I’ve been having, possibly as we’ve been talking, or connections I’ve been making or feelings I’ve been processing. And I watch his face shift into a ‘does not compute’ grimace, and I know that means he has no idea what I’m talking about.
And this is in part because I’ve forgotten to add in the translation layer. I’ve spoken from inside my experience without building the bridge to his, relying on our relational connection to be the black box through which all my jumbled logic becomes his kind of language.
And it’s not that what I’m saying is wrong or unclear in itself. At least it isn’t to me! It’s that I’m speaking a dialect of one - the language of my nervous system, my history, my accumulated associations and meanings, and my current rather random thoughts. If you look on my Instagram, you’ll see I have had quite a lot of random thoughts. Some even titled, Random Thoughts - scroll down! So expecting it to land as clearly for him as it does for me is taking that relational connection a bit too far.
Enter the translation layer.
The translation layer is the work of making ourselves comprehensible to others, and taking what’s happening in our internal world and finding the words, the context, and the framing that allows someone else to access it. It’s not dumbing down or oversimplifying - it’s respecting that other people don’t live inside our heads and can’t see the ten steps of thinking we did to arrive at this moment.
And doesn’t that sound easy and neat? When you’ve been through a traumatic event or a few, or spent considerable time in survival mode, it becomes easier - and harder - to remain in your head. Easier because it’s safer, and harder because when the translation doesn’t land as you hope, it reinforces the lack of the former.
So the translation layer isn’t an optional extra if we actually want to be understood — but more than that, it’s essential if we want to let someone into our experience rather than just speak at them from inside it.
I can and have chosen to skip the translation at times - maybe due to a lack of capacity, or a lack of safety, or just because I am done from all that thinking! I realise in those moments (or generally after them) that I am in need of magic - being seen without being heard. Maybe I don’t need them to question or deeply understand; or maybe I’m utilising the other person as a sounding board for my thoughts to be made real, or at least a little logical.
I can speak directly from my experience and feel frustrated when the other person doesn’t get it. I can blame them for not being present enough or connected enough - or I can get off my high and mighty horse and recognise that translation is my job, not theirs. It is my part of the relational bargain and where I build understanding and connection.
And this is an important reflection not only for us as people, but also us as parents. It matters enormously in adversity parenting, because our children are often speaking to us without a translation layer. They’re expressing directly from their emotional state, their sensory experience, and their overwhelm. They are fully in the moment, where thought processing is happening beneath language - in sensation, impulse and reaction - not in words they can access or articulate.
For example - ‘I hate you’ doesn’t come with the translation: ‘I’m scared and you’re safe enough to direct this at.’
‘I’m fine’ doesn’t include the subtitle: ‘I can’t access what I’m actually feeling right now and I need you to stay close without pushing me to have the answers. And I can’t deal with your emotions too.’
We have to do the translation ourselves. We have to hear what’s underneath, what’s behind, and what’s really being communicated beneath the words they’re using. And isn’t that exhausting! (Sorry - but it is!)
This is developmentally appropriate work for us to do. Children and young people’s brains are still developing the capacity for self-reflection, emotional regulation, and translating internal states into language. The prefrontal cortex - the part responsible for impulse control, perspective-taking, and complex reasoning - doesn’t fully mature until the mid 20s. When they’re in distress, they literally cannot do the translation work we’re capable of as adults.
But while it’s our job to translate what they’re communicating to us, it is not their job to translate what we’re communicating to them. So it’s doubly exhausting because we also need to offer them a translation layer when we’re communicating with them - but we need to translate our fear and overwhelm somewhere else, and not to them.
When we say ‘you need to get some sleep,’ a different translation might be: ‘I can see you’re exhausted and rest will help you cope better tomorrow.’ But if what we’re actually communicating is our own desperation for the day to end, our need for them to be okay so we can finally relax - that’s our untranslated need, and it needs processing elsewhere.
When we say ‘I’m worried about you’ have we translated: ‘I can see you’re struggling and I don’t know how to help?’ That’s honest and could be an opener for a conversation. But if we’re actually communicating our panic, our helplessness, our need for them to be okay so we can feel okay - all things we’ve all felt! - that’s an untranslated burden we’re placing on them.
The translation layer we offer our children needs to be already processed through our own adult capacity. We translate our directives into care and concern, yes. But we translate our fear and overwhelm with other adults first, so what reaches our child is the clarified version - the part that’s about them, not the part that’s about us needing them to fix our anxiety. And let’s be honest - we’ve all been there - no judgement!
Often we speak to our children in the language of directives, boundaries and expectations, when what we’re actually trying to communicate is love and fear and hope and uncertainty. We forget the translation layer - the work of making our internal experience accessible to them in a way that connects rather than burdens.
And they hear the directive but miss the meaning. They hear the boundary but not the care. They hear the expectation but not the fear. Or worse, they hear all of our fear and feel responsible for managing it.
The translation layer our children benefit from is rooted in the work we do with ourselves. The moment when we stop and ask: what am I actually feeling right now? What’s underneath this reaction, this urgency, this resistance? Because our first language for our own experience is often muddled, reactive, and protective. I know mine is. We have to translate it into something more honest, more precise, and more true.
This morning I’ve been trying to translate what I’m feeling about the next steps in my work. The first language - the reactive one - is all about fear, comparison and scarcity. But when I do the translation work and allow myself to slow down enough to find the layer underneath, it’s actually about meaning, contribution and sustainable impact.
Different language.
Different truth.
Different next steps.
The translation layer is exhausting work. It requires us to slow down when we want to move fast, to build bridges when we’d rather just be understood, and to take responsibility for making ourselves clear rather than blaming others for not getting it.
But without it, we’re all just speaking our own dialects, wondering why no one understands us, and frustrated that connection feels so hard.
Maybe the translation layer is actually where connection lives. It’s not in the perfect understanding that happens automatically in films and fairy tales, but in the willingness to do the work of making ourselves accessible and being prepared to revisit what we think and feel so another person can be a part of our experience, without having to live it as we do. It’s about having enough safety in ourselves to be open to meeting each other halfway and to recognise that we all need help bridging the gap between our internal world and the shared space between us.
I’m still working on my translation today and still finding the words for what I’m experiencing. Building the bridge between what I feel and what can be said, and what I mean and what can be heard is a daily practice, a bit like this Ramble. And some days, you may get what I’m saying, and other days you’ll need a translation. Or maybe you’ll make your own. Shared experience and shared language may not feel or sound exactly the same, but like me in a tiny French restaurant in 1993, I’m sure we’ll understand each other - kind of!
Thanks for being here. I may not be back tomorrow due to diary constraints but I will be back on Thursday, if I’m not.