How Do We Relate To One Another? (Understanding)
Feeling understood by someone is an incredible feeling. It results in a sense of appreciation that the other person really gets where you are coming from and can see or sense things from your perspective. It is an incredible form of validation that your own perspective is important and deserves to be understood. People love to be around others who just "get them".
So why is this deeper level of understanding not commonplace? Why is there still miscommunication, misinterpretation, and conflict in the society we live in? In this article, I wanted to share one explanation and it is based on how we communicate.
Before I share my thoughts I wanted to provide a bit of background for context.
To get to a place where you can truly understand someone you could assume that the following statement is true:
We do not live our lives based on reality, of what is. We live our lives based on our interpretation of reality, our perspective of the world, and how our lives are within it.
We are meaning-making machines. We give meaning to everything and how do we do that? Through language. Words by their very definition provide meaning. If you want to live a life based on true reality, then remove your ability to use or understand language and we both know that's impossible. The closest you have ever gotten to it is the moment you were born.
If you can accept the above statement to be true, then we can say the following holds true as well:
We all have a unique perspective about the world which makes up our worldview. No two perspectives about the world are the same.
With nearly 7.8 billion people on the planet, we have 7.8 billion unique perspectives and interpretations about the world. These are based on unique experiences, knowledge, upbringing, values, beliefs, and identities to name a few. Even identical twins will have different perspectives as it is likely that they will have different experiences or consume different information.
So if you believe both of those statements to be true then the art of truly understanding someone comes from communicating based on the other person's worldview and not your own. Too often conflicts or friction arise because someone imposes their worldview on another. This is based on an underlying assumption that one view is right or better than the other which is not true. No one person's worldview is any less valid than another. Sometimes it's difficult to appreciate that fact without living the life the other person has experienced.
Our unique worldview is responsible for how we interpret and represent information in our minds. We use it to filter the information we get from our senses and from it, we usually create an image or movie in our mind's eye. So as someone is talking to you, internally you are trying to visualise and experience what they are trying to say. This visualisation is massively open to interpretation. Let me give you a quick example:
What do you picture when you see the words: Sam hit Billy
Chances are the image or images you have in your head are not the same as the image I am poorly communicating. It's only by asking questions that you can start to understand my image. For example:
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Is Sam a woman or man, girl or boy, human or animal? How old is Sam?
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Is Billy a man or boy, human or animal? How old is Billy?
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How did Sam hit Billy? or What did Sam hit Billy with?
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Where (on the body) did Sam hit Billy?
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Where (location) did Sam hit Billy?
Without questioning you would have accepted your visual representation as the truth and based any further discussion on that without understanding my visual which was:
Sam (boy, 17) tackled Billy (boy, 17) around the waist during a rugby game.
We are constantly updating our mental imagery as we receive more and more information. The more we can question, the more we can uncover about what the other person is seeing or experiencing, and therefore our communication is more accurate. True understanding comes when we are both communicating using the same clear image(s) or movie in our minds. For this to happen at least one person in the conversation needs to be willing to suspend their worldview so that they can step into the other person's. The larger the group, the more challenging this can be.
In my mind, true understanding is the antidote to conflict. Instead of going to battle with differing worldviews, understanding creates acceptance and from acceptance comes connection.
To be clear, understanding another person doesn't mean you have to change your worldview, it means that you can accept theirs. Once you can do this you will realise that people's behaviour, even if it appears strange to you, can be explained when seen in the context of their worldview, not yours.
Exercise:
When communicating:
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Try to be as clear as possible with your language. Be descriptive and highlight the details and people involved (if needed). Try to leave no room for misinterpretation by the person you are speaking to.
When watching, listening, or reading:
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Try to avoid accepting the images you visualise straight away. If something that a person said is ambiguous or open to interpretation, then gather more information by asking clarifying questions, such as:
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Can you tell me more?
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What do you mean by...?
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In what way did x do y?
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How did that happen?
I'll finish with a quote by Stephen. R. Covey:
"Seek first to understand, then to be understood"
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