Reflections: The Need to Understand

The Art of Communicating Well:

As always is the case, writing a reflections piece for this site with a theme of love or relationships comes out of my personal experience.  I teach, and teaching is how I learn.  Similar to this reciprocal exchange, writing has long been the tool that I use to teach myself.

Today’s idea has been floating around for a while, and I will address it today as means of pinning it down to explore it a little better.

Last month I had an ugly breakdown in communication with someone that I respect a great deal.  I can count on one hand the amount of times that something like this happened to the extent that it did with this person.  It left me feeling dark and bad about myself, replaying the event over and over.  When I shared it, eventually, with trusted friends I still didn’t feel better.

The first thing to address here are my motives in sharing, and not so much who I chose to share with but how.  The first person I shared with is familiar with the subject and relationship and has things in common with it, and I did so to air it out and hear her opinion.  It occurred only after the fact that the second time I related the experience I relived the fight, allowing myself to get aggressive and opinionated.  The second person I chose, though unconsciously, because I knew she would support my hurt feelings.

Which is a healthy part of the process, for sure!  But what if I had stopped there?

Take Ownership and Rectify the Situation:

Personal relationships, in a time when lack of community is felt on every level of humanity, are more important than ever right now. For this reason I practice the habit of reconciling my behavior.  What I mean is I learned some time ago that if my conscience is speaking to me about something I did that caused pain or confusion, I am the one who has to take ownership and rectify that.  It is that singular behavior, that direct means, that empowers me to be human with other people.  When I do so, acknowledge my mistakes, time and again it opens me into a deeper level of authentic experience with others.

I have learned too how important language is.  When I address my conduct I try to keep it very simple.  I state clearly what I have done wrong.  If it warrants it I give an explanation, but only if the explanation does not include pointing a finger at the other’s behavior.  If I need it, I ask for explanation, too.

The Need to Always Be Right:

And that’s the tough part: being willing to understand.  We live in a culture that encourages us to be the best.  Ingrown in this belief system is the idea that the best also means being right.  That kind of belief allows us to isolate from others, because inherently, if I am right someone else is wrong.  It’s easy for me to stay circled in by all sorts of people that support my rightness.

So I am learning to make practice now of trying to understand.  So far, that’s not black and white.  In addressing my behavior with this person from above, it opened up an avenue to be held against the wall.  This person told me frankly what ideas of mine he thought had to change.  It was the opposite of being understood, and was really hard for me.

The Importance of Being Kind:

But I was able to understand this person instead of clinging to which one of us was right.  In that, we deepened the conversation.  Inside my own understanding of him, I literally felt my need to be right start to melt.  I watched it float away from me.  Since that day I have had several experiences of getting to choose if I wanted to be right, or be kind.  I have stuck with being kind.

Do not misunderstand my intent.  We are in a process of growth, that is clear.  What I know is that relationships constantly change, at least the ones in which we, too, are growing.  I suspect this issue, in a different form, will resurface.  There will come a time when my need to be understood will surface.  It will be different, in that moment, than needing to be right, and will trump my sense of the importance of being kind.

How I handle it, with truth and integrity, or aggressive opinions, that part is yet to be seen…

Photo courtesy of Flickr: https://www.flickr.com/photos/4thglryofgod/8467952139/sizes/z/in/photostream/