Have you ever felt misunderstood?
Do not you understand why your daughter / or adolescent behaves like this?
Is your neighbor mad at you and you don't know why?
Have you reached a moment with your partner that you have stopped understanding him / her?
We have all had the experience of feeling misunderstood at times and / or not understanding the other. It is as if (speaking the same language) one spoke in Chinese and another in German, there is no way to agree. Even two brothers from the same parents, who have shared a home, education, values, etc. many times they do not understand each other.
If you want to know the guidelines to understand yourself and understand others, then this article will interest you:
To tell you that my Coaching mentor, who had been training in this understanding, wanted to share it with her disciples, including myself.
The difference with the traditional coaching that I had learned is that in this new way of helping people, we do not use a set of tools that we first have to learn and then apply with clients, since in this understanding it is about realizing of what ALREADY IS.
This time I am going to focus solely on understanding oneself and towards others, for which I am going from three premises:
- The human being is a thinking being The human being has an emotional nature Each human being lives in the reality of his thought, therefore we live in parallel realities.
If you become aware of these three premises that we will delve into shortly, you will understand why you feel what you feel, why you do what you do and you will also understand the behavior of others.
The human being is a thinking being
It is clear that you already know that human beings think, however you may not know that we have more than seventy thousand thoughts a day. These thoughts come from various sources: from our own experiences, (from what we see, hear, touch, smell, taste), from the information that comes to us from our environment: family, school, social, world, etc. and events.
When we are born, we explore the world with curiosity, and from the above, we form our concepts, beliefs, ideas, which will become the filter through which we will look at life.
Our thoughts pass through this mental filter, so even if two people look at the same beach, each one will interpret that information that comes to their eyes differently. It is as if person "X" sees the beach with purple glasses and person "Y" with yellow glasses.
Another important characteristic of thought is that it is transitory in nature: they come to our mind and pass, unless we don't let them pass, we re-think about it and make arbitrary interpretations, we recreate situations by making use (misuse) of our imagination, turning it into an endless novel. And the worst: believing the story that we have invented ourselves.
The human being is emotional in nature
Human beings have the ability to feel a wide range of emotions. It's part of our nature. Within this range, there are emotions that we like and others that we dislike, but these fluctuate in the same way that the weather does: some people prefer heat, others prefer cold, and despite our preferences, we have to experience them all. the temperatures of the place where we live.
Emotions are born from our thoughts, however, we are not always aware of everything we think, so many times we do not know why we feel sad, happy, etc.
Emotions are also transitory. This is good news, since most people when they go through a bad time believe that this unpleasant emotion will stay for a long time or will be permanent that is why they are afraid of feeling certain emotions.
We tend to think that our emotions come from what happens outside of us:
* I think about the promotion they gave me and I feel very happy. But the joy you feel does not come from the promotion itself, but from what you say to yourself: "I am a valuable person", "it will improve my status", "I will be able to offer a better life to my children", etc. And that positive internal dialogue brings you joy.
* I was fired from work and I feel distressed, sad, angry. Similarly, the anguish, sadness, anger, does not come from the situation itself, but from your internal dialogue: “I am a failure”, “I am useless”, “I will not be able to pay the mortgage”. The thoughts you have produce your emotions.
Many theories propose changing our negative thoughts into positive ones in order to feel better, however, although the intention is good, as we have seen, it is impossible to control our thinking at all times.
Each human being lives in reality and his thought, therefore we live in parallel realities
If "X" sees the beach in purple and "Y" sees it in yellow, "X" does not understand why "Y" looks for yellow in his color palette to paint his landscape, if according to him / her it is of course the beach is purple. For his part, "Y" looks for a thousand ways to explain to "X" that he should paint his beach painting yellow, he is convinced that he is right to correct his friend / or / daughter / or / husband / etc. and he does it for their sake…
If we understand that each person looks at life through their filter or particular color, we will understand that the other person is acting according to what they feel and think. Only if "X" wears the yellow glasses of "Y" will he understand why "Y" does what he does and vice versa.
So what do we do to understand each other?
I want to invite you to (tips):
- Realize the unlimited thoughts that come to your mind (mental noise). Don't define every thought, just be aware that they exist. Experience your emotions in peace. Don't try to run away from them and watch them go by (if you don't gloat over them). Watch the people around you. Ask yourself: What thought will this person have that makes them feel and act this way? Also observe yourself and find out how you act based on what you think / feel.
