Hi, lovely Soul Drop!!
I’m sincerely sorry for addressing you so late today! My day was one roller-coaster of a ride! How are you feeling? Did you have a good day? Or maybe your day was over a long time ago because you’re in a different time zone than mine.
So many times we say something and the other person understands it in a different way either creating an idea different from what we truly meant or the misunderstanding leads into a fight. We might get offended or feel deeply hurt when the other person didn’t mean anything that we understood. I speak various languages and there at times where I feel like I can’t truly communicate in any of them.
Sometimes not even silences speak in the same language. Not even music or laughter is entirely universal! Ask any comedian if everyone laughs at the same jokes or even better! Ask me what is it like to laugh wholeheartedly out of pure nerves. I once laughed at my mother when she was weeping after my dad’s funeral, why? Because I had ten years old and I was absolutely terrified of the situation so I got nervous and found out I start to laugh like an idiot when I’m super anxious or scared…amazing way to find out, right?
Each mind is a unique universe shaped by experiences, social and cultural background, genetics and who knows what else. Understanding each other isn’t as easy as it seems especially when it comes to emotions. One YouTube channel I absolutely adore is The School of Life and they speak about Emotional translation and how we must understand others won’t always mean what they say or say what they mean.
When it comes to strangers it’s a bit hard to truly understand what they mean when it comes to an emotional response, probably that person who is insulting you through the Internet is not even talking with you or thinking about you but some enemy they have inside their minds. Maybe I’m wrong but when I got into those famous social media fights I naturally ended up venting my inner fears and frustrations that almost never had anything to do with the topic of the argument, maybe it’s just me but this happened a lot.
On the other hand, when it comes to people we love things get even trickier because we do feel something for them. If you care about a faceless random stranger yelling at you just imagine how deeply it affects us when we’re facing the emotional response of our loved ones. We truly care about them so our own emotions come into place in a stronger manner than before causing us to deliver another emotional response that might be fueled by a misunderstanding.
Maybe they are tired, maybe they feel insecure, maybe we said something that made their brain connect with an event of the past that made them angry so they get angry again (this is actually how our brains work, they learn to recognize patterns and cues so they repeat the same thing over and over reacting the same way to a different and yet similar situation).
My point is…when arguing with someone you love just remember that we have to take a lot of time to actually try to understand what they truly mean. Most of the times is not what we think. Take deep breaths, ask your loved one what they really feel and why are they feeling like that so you can comprehend and help. I know its super hard not to jump into the fight like a lion looking for a kill but the results of these fights are seldom productive or helpful when approached like this. Breathe, calm down and truly try to understand or understand yourself first so the other person might get what you truly want to get across. It’s crucial to stay calm for this to work; an altered mind is never ready to understand anything. If you’re unable to calm yourself at the moment, postpone that talk.
Thank you so much for reading; I hope I managed to get my point across!
With much love,
Bel.