BLOG: YOU WILL NEVER UNDERSTAND

Recently, a loved one did something that was actually quite hurtful.  What they did caused quite a bit of pain, shock, frustration and wounding. This person has done this before and yet I was still shocked and therefore experienced this as a small trauma. I found myself saying over and over again:  I DON’T UNDERSTAND.  I try to be mindful about my internal reaction to outer things. I am  good at having good enough boundaries so that I don’t “react” to outer experiences before I am able to see how these outer experiences affect me and I ask  “what would be the right  “response” rather a knee jerk reaction”.

Though, I did succeed in not reacting, I am still considering what the best response is.

In considering this, I have realized that the statement, “I don’t understand”, has not really served me well.  I often try to understand why someone did something so I can just ignore it, condone it or even act as if it is o.k. that they did this. This does not serve me or them.  The correct way to respond to someone, when they do something that has a negative effect is to own our own experience first.  That is, to notice the feelings that are coming up in response to what they did. In this case, I first noticed in my body that I felt as if I had been gut-punched. This was my bodily sensation. I noticed that I was immediately trying to go into my head about this experience and try to understand how on earth they could do this AGAIN! This was my way of trying to not feel the feelings around this experience. When I was willing to notice m feelings, I noticed anger first. This is often what people notice and then they react from this anger.

I did not want to react from anger. So, I noticed underneath the anger was deep sadness. The sadness came from being hurt once again by this person and truly wondering how they could do this yet again.

I noticed that I kept trying to go to understanding, which as I said, is not the way to go.

The way to go is to understand this:  When someone does something that causes pain, at least 80 to 95% of the time, they are not necessarily trying to cause pain, they are acting unconsciously or in a very self centered manner, and they have no clue what effects their behaviors are going to be on those around them

If we are willing to UNDERSTAND this, then we will immediately experience some relief from the pain from what they did. The next step after we decide to not take what they did personally is to take care of ourselves. This can be done in a number of ways but the first thing to do is to probably find a trusted friend, or therapist or some other person who will listen from their heart to what happened. Then, you can decide what to do as far as the response. If the person who did the wounding has done this before, you need t o consider whether this is a safe person to be in relationship with.  That is, if this is a never ending pattern, then one may need to decide whether to stay in the relationship. If there is a pattern in which this person continually makes their needs more important than your needs, the relationship is definitely out of balance, and it may be time to end the relationship (gracefully). Or, if this is not possible, it is important to find someone to talk to about setting healthy boundaries with this person so you do not continually get hurt in circumstances like this. Ideally, you would talk to a professional about this because setting boundaries in a healthy way is tricky.

Finally, I thought of a great metaphor for dealing with this type of person. In general, when we drive, most people drive on the correct side of the street. In the U.S, that is of course on the right side. If we saw someone clearly driving on the incorrect side of the street, we would immediately get away from this driver. We would get away first and check out WHY they are on the wrong side second. Thus, with dealing with people who are self centered and care more about themselves than others; it is important to first move yourself away from them and then figure out what is going on second after you have had a chance to cool down and talk with a trusted friend.

Please call me to set up an appointment if you would like to talk with me about these types of communication issues and how to set boundaries.