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When We Don't Understand

We like things to fit our sense of reality, but what happens when they don’t?

Many years ago, while visiting my parents, they were giving each other the kind of potshots I had grown up around. When my father said, “Shirley, I’ll never understand you.” What I heard was, no matter how much I’ve told you. You just never get it. That was the moment I realized his words were true, even if their meaning had been changed by his tone.

“That’s right Dad, you don’t.”

He was too hooked by his frustration to hear. For me, it was an ah-ha moment when another piece of the puzzle came together. How many times had I dropped into judgment when I didn’t understand someone? It was more than I could remember. And, like my dad, it was dismissed from mind by the conviction that I was right and they were wrong.

It was a tenacious habit that shut down any further investigation into what was being discussed. Recognizing this did not stop me from being hooked again and again and again. What it did produce was an awareness that would come at times after the fact. My mind would be spinning some familiar theme, where only the names were changed to convict the guilty.

• It was evoked when someone’s behavior did not:
• meet my expectations,
• make sense to me,
• agree with my values,
• conform to what I understood.

Eventually the mind opened to not understanding in a new way. It stopped condemning and slowly pondered what it might be like to see things from another angle. It was freeing to stop defending my perspective and stop needing to understand (agree with) theirs. They offered a view that was unfamiliar, maybe uncomfortable, it did not fit into my sense of reality. Could it be as true for them as mine was true for me?

Here are some things that became apparent for me as the mind allowed for a deeper comprehension of how things were for others.

• We each become angry, frustrated, happy, joyous, disgusted, surprised, etc…
• Not at the same things
• Our expression of these things vary from person to person
• We each each have a full range of emotions—that we often justify and don’t examine.
• Our emotions tend to show up, be evoked, and/or just happen. There does not seem to be much choice involved in them.
• An emotional response has a physical element that is experienced, like adrenaline rushing through one’s system. The response is real regardless of whether the stimulus is or not.

Imagine yourself alone in the woods when you hear something you think             is a bear. The fear experienced is real, whether there is real danger or not. (Yet we tend to believe the feeling.)

Do We Know Better?

photo by narghee-la

I was sitting with a woman the other day who was busy telling me of her failings. Of how she knew better and didn’t understand why she kept making the same mistake.

It was true—she did not understand. And yet the unspoken message of her tone was one of self judgment, not that of someone who had more to learn.

“She knew better” she said, judging herself and dismissing all the other competing feelings and thoughts. Her body slumping, in its own response. I have been in that place too many times not to recognize it. Thinking about what I should have done—mad at myself for not doing it different.

Do we know better? Aren’t there different levels of knowing? Intellectual knowledge, without experience cannot produce the same understanding as that with experience. In the doing comes the understanding. This is how the nutrients of knowledge are digested.

Judging ourself by the standard of know better, when in fact, we have not put in the time breaking an old pattern can, and often does, short circuit our effort to learn. Think about this: when you have actually learned something better, don’t you use it?

Like an addiction, habitual ways of operating are the defaults that come to us in the moment. They take effort to overcome and time is a factor. In the realm of behavioral changes it is useful to understand what one is up against. Who amongst us has not tried to change some behavior only to discover how persistent it can be? How it happens before we think, or the will power we need in the moment is not there.

It is not unusual to find a default setting of judgment toward ourself and/or others when expectations are not met. Check it out for yourself. How often does judgment toward your self or others produce what you want?

Learning to be patient with yourself and others is not easy. It does however allow one to observe behavior, without falling into the sinkhole of judgment. Learning to think before speaking is easier said than done. Learning to act in another way comes through practice and making mistakes. Ease up on yourself… and others.

What Are You Aiming For - Win/Lose or Resolution

There you are in the middle of an argument you are poised to deliver the quintessential response. You do. You won… but what did you win?

I suspect most of us have been on one side of this, or the other.

Difficult conversations, tend to be with those close to us. They often seem to erupt; causing more problems than solutions. The eruption confirms our fear of discussing it in the first place. This scenario can have many variations. It fundamentally forms a pattern that keeps us stuck in frustration and resentment; not knowing how to be different. If this sounds familiar to you and you are looking for some alternatives here are some things to think about.

When a conversation becomes about yes/no, right/wrong, good/bad, it is in duality. Do not mistake this for seeking resolution. It has become about winning and losing. Is this the direction your heart wants to take? Remember, the attitude of the arrow determines the direction it takes.

Why is it we tell people things they don’t want to hear AND we want them to be okay with it? Are we okay with it? It can be incredibly uncomfortable to just be with another’s upset? Do you have room to let them have their feelings? Do you want them to let you have yours?

A common default assumption is: people consciously intend to hurt or offend us. Investigating this has led me to believe that the internal intention is born of wanting to back the other off. How one is affected by that is the collateral damage, not the intent. They don’t get up saying how can I get them. This does not stop it from happening, so what to do about it?

Here is a question I have found invaluable, when someone I care about is doing something that is upsetting for me. 

Did you know, when you do________________ I feel______________. Is that what you meant to have happen? Whatever the answer is (I usually found it to be no.) Ask them if they would be willing to not do that, or do it another way? When doing this from sincerity I find people to be open and engaging with me. If they say yes, I follow it up with; would it be okay to remind you, if you forget?  If they say no, it is good information to have. 

This is a tool I have used for many years now and found it works far better than my win/lose default that left me feeling empty all too often. If you try this out, please let me know how it works for you.  


Photo by Craig Loftus on flicker

7 Reasons to try Acceptance

My husband has Alzheimer’s disease. It has been eight years since we learned this. The changes have been slow and fluctuating. Perhaps this is why, the word, acceptance has been popping up in my life in so many places.

At any moment we can be changed by events beyond our control, no one escapes this possibility. The changes can take us up and/or down. (Though the ones that take us up seem to slip from mind faster than the ones bring us down.) How one navigates these changes, generates their experience.

Accepting people, places and things as they are, and/or lamenting about how one thinks they should be, reveals what is often obscured. Our part—in how we experience our life.

Seven things to think about regarding acceptance.

1. Once the actuality of something is accepted, determining the next best move has room to show up.
2. A problem unacknowledged, is rarely solved. Good fortune unacknowledged leads to entitlement.
3. Acceptance and agreement are not synonymous, one does not necessitate the other.
4. What I don’t accept, I usually resist.
5. Resistance tends to hold things in place.
6. Suffering is born of resistance to what is and what is not.
7. Pain, whether physical, emotional or mental is an indicator, not a conviction. `

3 Ways to Learn More

NOVEMBER 27, 1949 It is not necessary to give up one's own point of view, nor to agree with other people just because one likes them. From my point of view, what makes the work of a group much more interesting than that of an individual, is that each person should find in himself his own sincere viewpoint, which is peculiarly his, and contribute it to the whole— in this way the whole becomes rich and balanced.           Rodney Collin Smith

Sounds good. Putting it into practice has been more difficult than imagined. It requires remembering to let in what the other say, to imagine their perspective, and add it while respecting my own. This is not my default position.

A common default way of listening is, do I agree or disagree, am I right or wrong. It is the all or nothing position of duality. Listening as a collaborative experience can be uncomfortable. Internally it brings a physical and emotional tension that cues my defenses--wanted or not. It costs the ability to learn about myself and others.

Taming the instant, aggressive/defensive reactions that charge my body and ready it for retort, is a work in progress. Holding back a reaction and doing something different takes an effort that needs to be developed. 


Here are some things I have found helpful.

1. Listen for information rather than agreement.

2. Recognize different positions reflect what is seen by the viewer. 


Imagine a ball that is red on one side and blue on the other. Two people are             standing on either side of the ball, one seeing only red, the other only blue. They are arguing over who is right. This represents a fundamental difficulty we have in effective communication.

3. Notice ego is often dominant when one is speaking from duality.

Mining Upsets - Finding Gold

It was years before realizing the wealth of knowledge available from upsets. Upsets often formed my attitude. The more upsets, the worse the attitude. They were the bane of my happiness, until…  discovering how ripe they were with information.

Know thyself is an old adage dating back to the Oracle of Delphi. Great idea, but how does one go about it? How does one examine without bias, without the duality of good and bad, right and wrong? My mind went there like a wheel finds a rut. Finding a way out of the rut seemed to take place in stages.

The first element came when, one day in an instant, my mood shifted from excited to deflated in seconds. It was startling.  There was a dual experience of both having the experience and watching it at the same time.  It happened like this. 

I had written a letter to handle an out of state speeding ticket; and was feeling proud of myself. When my husband arrived home for lunch I showed it to him. He reached for the red pen in his pocket protector and began making corrections. Each red line dropped me lower.

Form the eyes of the witness within came a question I have carried with me from that day forward. What just happened to me? The question took me back to an incident I hadn’t thought of in over 30 years. It was an old and familiar reaction. The observation was intriguing. I had not noticed the automatic way one mood usurped another. It just happened and usually I thought the mood was me.

The question set me on a different course; one that revealed a different perspective. It was a fresh angle that brought old information into a new light, opening a path to self understanding and compassion rather than judgment. I was learning rather than reaffirming a perspective that had not served me in the past, nor did I think it could in my future. It was the beginning of what I have named my neutral observer within.