How a Simple Language Shift Reveals and Strengthens Your Empowerment and Connection

A psychologist began teaching this practice in the 1960s. For more than 50 years, the practice spread privately, person to person. Now you can try the practice for yourself as we prepare to make the practice accessible to all.

By Kevin Miller

In the 1960s, psychologist John Weir and his wife, Joyce, began teaching people a different way of speaking. They called the practice Percept Language, referring to speaking according to your perception. Psychotherapist Jake Eagle and his wife, Hannah, went on to teach the approach to thousands of people. The practice never went mainstream. People who learned the practice kept describing the same changes: less conflict, more understanding, and a stronger sense of agency, meaning a sense that they're the ones shaping their own experience.

I came across the practice in 2023, after interviewing over 400 leading practitioners in personal growth on my podcast. In 15 years of this work, nothing I've encountered has done more for my closest relationships, starting with the relationship with myself. Jake, Hannah, and I have since created the SAGE Process, our way of teaching the practice, to bring the practice to the public. SAGE stands for Subjective Awareness and Genuine Expression. The concept is to become and remain aware that nearly all of what you communicate (and think) is actually subjective, and then to express yourself genuinely.

Most of our daily communication is not about facts, but about our perspective on facts: how the evening went, what a partner meant, whether a decision is wise, what we thought about an event. Yet most of us speak our perspective as if our perspective were fact. "That's not what happened." "You never listen." "That's a terrible idea."

In SAGE, we call that outside-in language. The sentence places the meaning outside you, as if life is happening to you. Inside-out language places the meaning where we believe the meaning is made, inside you. "That's not how I experienced the evening." "I'm not feeling heard right now." "I'm not understanding the validity of that idea."

Own your perspective, and speak inside-out.

Where our experience comes from

As we see things, our experience builds in layers.

1. What we experience comes from our unique perspective.
2. Our perspective is mostly made up of how we make meaning of what we perceive. By making meaning, we mean the sense we make of what happens: what an event means to us, and how we feel about the event.
3. How we make meaning comes mostly from our personal context. Your context is everything you bring to a moment: your history, beliefs, hopes, plans, and what you were expecting or wanting from the moment.

In that sense, our context is our bias. We don't mean prejudice. We mean the lens we measure and judge everything through, which can also show up as an agenda or a motive. We hold that, as humans, we can't come to anything without our own bias. But you can experience incredible value by being open and honest about your bias, and asking others to do the same. Then, for once, you're discussing the root of an issue and what's really at stake. We find outside-in language hiding that lens, while inside-out language reveals the lens.

What outside-in language costs us

We find most people talk outside-in, on autopilot, as this is the cultural language structure. We start talking, say what we believe is true, and then debate with others who perceive things differently. We often say things we regret, try to reword them, and bumble along. When I state my perspective as fact, I'm handing the other person a verdict, or in essence, a judged conclusion. They are then left to accept the verdict or fight the verdict. Neither choice leaves much room for curiosity or real understanding. And we do this constantly, in nearly every conversation.

We see a quieter cost too. "He made me angry" puts my anger in his hands. "That meeting was a waste" puts my experience in the meeting's hands. Sentence by sentence, we find outside-in language leaving us feeling less empowered, without our knowing why.

Three ways we talk through our differences

We see three levels in how people talk through a difference. A picnic in the rain shows each one.

Level one: making our point

One of you says, "The rain ruined the picnic." The other says, "Are you kidding? The rain made the picnic wonderful!" Each of you is stating a perspective as fact, in outside-in language. Now you're arguing about the picnic. In our experience, this is where most of us start, and where much of our friction and conflict begins.

Level two: trying to understand each other's perspective

Many of us have been coached to do better. We stop the back-and-forth and take turns listening to each other's perspective. In our experience, though, we keep using outside-in language while we listen and explain. One person explains why the picnic was ruined, striving to convince the other to not just understand, but to side with their perspective. The other explains why the picnic was the best ever, striving to convince the other person to see things their way. Each wraps their perspective in claimed facts and at best they agree to disagree.

People often make what we see as a misguided attempt to "be objective," meaning to be unbiased. Again, we experience that nobody can be truly unbiased. So level two often continues with people simply trying to convince each other. Usually unsuccessfully.

Level three: revealing how we're making meaning (the SAGE way)

Inside-out language goes to the root of a perspective: how each of us is making meaning from our own context. And as we said above, our context is made up of our bias.

Instead of trying to be unbiased, we find the magic in revealing our bias.

At the picnic, level three sounds like this. "I was looking forward to a long, dry afternoon on the grass with the kids, flying kites, getting a tan, and having a nice layout of food, so I'm disappointing myself with the rain." Nothing in that sentence asks anyone to make a ruling on the picnic. Most people hearing that context could understand feeling the same way. Then the other person shares their context. "I live in a dry, cold climate, and being able to be in the warm rain on a summer day still feels like a huge gift to me." You'd likely understand that too.

Now neither of you is defending a verdict. You're understanding each other's context, and often appreciating how the other person made meaning. In our experience, the friction tends to fall away. Sometimes two people find they've cared about similar things all along. Sometimes they find they were talking about different issues entirely. Sometimes they still see things differently, but the difference doesn't become adversarial.

The question that opens level three is simple. Instead of explaining my perspective or trying to convince, I ask, "How are you making meaning of this?" We find that question drawing out the context behind someone's view. We often see people connecting with themselves in ways they aren't used to as they answer.

Research backs part of level three. Across 15 studies, people respected someone they disagreed with more when that person shared personal experience instead of facts ^[1].

Negotiators know a version of this idea. The classic negotiation book Getting to Yes urges people to look past positions, meaning what someone demands, to the interests underneath, meaning why they want what they want ^[2]. Inside-out language does something similar in everyday speech. When I speak inside-out, I reveal the meaning I'm making, so that I, and the other person, can more clearly see the context behind my view. What we find unique about SAGE is building that revealing into the grammar of every sentence you speak, not only into hard conversations or a counselor's office. We haven't found another approach that puts those pieces together.

Yes, inside-out language takes effort

You may be thinking that speaking this way sounds awkward, or like more work. We agree. Inside-out language can feel unfamiliar at first.

Consider how most of us learned to speak. As children, we learn to talk on autopilot. In school, we learn grammar so others can understand us. Some of us later work on dropping filler words like "um." Groups like Toastmasters help people speak clearly and connect with an audience. Each step takes effort, and each step makes our speech more thoughtful.

We see inside-out language as the next step. Most of what we talk about is our perspective, and inside-out language simply communicates that perspective honestly. So we don't see inside-out language as a clever technique, but as a more accurate way of speaking and a more thoughtful way of communicating.

In our experience, the unfamiliar feeling fades with practice, the awareness stays, and others seldom consciously notice that you're speaking differently. We find people growing in self-respect from speaking this way, and connecting with others at a deeper level.

What people experience in using the language

Over the decades to the present, people who practice inside-out language describe feeling a stronger sense of agency and security, feeling more present in the moment, having deeper self-awareness, and realizing closer connection in the relationships they care about. Many describe a shift from feeling that life is happening to them, to feeling that they are accepting a high level of participation in their own experience of life. We're preparing a pilot study to measure what people have reported for decades.

If someone sent you this article, I'd guess they're experiencing those changes right now, and they want to share them with you.

See where your words stand

Many of us enjoy finding out about ourselves, through a personality profile or quiz. The SAGE Companion offers something similar, built from your own words. The Companion is an AI-powered guide on a website. You describe a perspective you have about something, such as a relationship you're struggling with, a decision you're weighing, or a challenging circumstance, and the Companion responds.

The Companion shows you how much ownership of your perspective you're aware of, and how much you're expressing. You'll see where and how you are empowering yourself, and where you hand your experience to the people and events around you. Most of us are surprised by how much we're handing away.

The Companion isn't a grade. The Companion guides you to convert your normal outside-in thinking and speaking to inside-out, and to recognize the context behind your view. The Companion doesn't necessarily solve an issue for you. In our experience, though, people who are empowering themselves find better solutions far more readily.

Try the Companion in a relationship that matters

One way people, especially couples, can use the Companion surprised even us. Before a conversation discussing even a seemingly low-risk topic, each of you goes to a separate place and opens the Companion. Write or dictate everything you want to say, holding nothing back. In conversation, and even with a counselor, many of us stay guarded, because full honesty can cost us. Alone with the Companion, you can just share freely.

Then the Companion responds, asking you to own what you said, which reveals for all of us, even the SAGE creators, where we are so often not owning our perspectives. Consider an interesting paradigm. You may not initially like the thought of being held accountable for owning yourself, but wouldn't you like the other person to be? You might enjoy the thought of your partner having to own all the perspectives that they have always claimed as fact, and being called out. Not by you, and not even by a counselor they could disagree with or discount. The Companion simply mirrors back what they said, and shows them where they're presenting as objective what is very likely subjective. The Companion won't let them, or you, off the hook. You both have to keep working until you can say what you care about while fully owning your perspective and the meaning you're making. Then come back together and share from that vantage point. Even read the final response you came to in the Companion. We also find that sometimes, after working with the Companion, one person admits they no longer believe what they said moments ago, and realizes they're struggling with something else entirely. People find the Companion a tremendous guide for dealing with issues harmoniously, and quite often find the guidance dismantling a presupposed issue entirely.

People tell us they share with more confidence, more calm, and a steadier nervous system than before, and so does the other person. We consistently see connections growing much deeper.

Sometimes the exercise reveals something harder, however. One person may refuse to own any of their perspective, and insist every view of theirs is fact, even after their verdicts have clearly shown up as subjective, not fact. That refusal, we feel, reveals a lot about how committed someone is to connection with others, versus solely taking a stance for what they want. We see the exercise testing and revealing the integrity of the relationship. With that in mind, we present the Companion as a tool for people who are sincerely committed to authentic connection and relational harmony. While people who practice SAGE consistently use the Companion to guide them in relationships with almost everyone in their lives, the tool proves most powerful in the most intimate relationships where the most is at stake.

Try SAGE today

The SAGE Companion is a working tool, free while in its early beta version. There's no cost. You can use a made-up name for yourself if you desire, and the Companion doesn't retain your conversations. The Companion is a reflective tool, not a therapist or crisis service.

SAGE Companion: https://www.kevinmiller.co/companion

To simply test any message and see your message converted from your normal outside-in language to inside-out language, try the SAGE Translator, which works similarly to Grammarly: https://www.kevinmiller.co/translator

Own your perspective, and speak inside-out.

Apart from the examples in quotation marks, I wrote this article in inside-out language, owning each perspective as subjective.

Sources

[1] Kubin, E., Puryear, C., Schein, C., and Gray, K. (2021). Personal experiences bridge moral and political divides better than facts. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 118(6), e2008389118.

[2] Fisher, R., Ury, W., and Patton, B. (1981, 2011). Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In. Penguin.