People should be kind and loving and open. People should treat each other with respect. And I caused myself a lot of pain, all the while justifying this madness with an indignant sense of righteousness.īecause people should try to understand.
I tried to impose my will upon them-the will to be valued and heard-regardless of whether they were willing or capable of giving me those courtesies. I tried to force them to see my basic goodness and view the world from my vantage point. We often take that pain and churn into anger. It hurts to feel like someone is more committed to misunderstanding you than developing any sense of common ground. It hurts to feel like someone doesn’t care to see where you’re coming from or hear what you have to say. They would belittle my beliefs and opinions, as if they warranted neither consideration nor respect.Īnd they would even make fun of me when I tried to share my thoughts and feelings, minimizing not only my perspective but also my personhood. This person often assumed the worst of me-that I was selfish and weak-and interpreted things I did through this lens. And it also creates a sense of separation, which, for some, feels safer than closeness. When you’re the one withholding the comfort of understanding, it can imbue you with a sense of power. I never felt understood or validated, and worse, I often got the sense the other person didn’t care to understand me. There was a time when one of my relationships felt incredibly unsafe. But those feelings don’t always come easily. That requires a certain sense of safety, which hinges upon feeling valued and accepted. We’re social creatures, and we thrive when feel a sense of belonging. Underneath all these maybes is the desire to feel validated. Maybe, if they’d been where we’ve been, if they’d seen what we’ve seen, they’d stand right where we are now, in the same circumstances, with the same beliefs, making the same choices. And maybe they’d do the same thing if they were in our shoes. They recognize the thoughts, feelings, and struggles that underlie our choices, and they not only empathize but maybe even relate. We want to know that people see our good intentions and not only get where we’re coming from but get us. I believe one of our strongest desires in life is to feel understood.
“True love is born from understanding.” ~Buddha
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