Have you ever been upset with someone or thought they were upset with you? Maybe you didn’t actually get in a fight, but maybe things were said that hurt your feelings or vice verse. Now you two avoid each other because you think they are mad, but this hurts you and all the time you wish you could fix this.
Why don’t we share our emotions more especially, when we are in a disagreement with others?
I have been considering this lately because there is a something I wish I could fix but I am afraid that it is none of my business and I don’t want to cause more damage.
I understand that it is hard to have these conversations because emotional pain is involved and we tend to go into fight or flight mode when we are hurt.
In many cases we avoid the other person and the topic all together. Sometimes we hope it will heal itself, and sometimes it does. The problem is when it does not. It tends to become a festering wound. Then we start to imaging how the other person is mad at us, talking bad about us, hates us, etc. If we have interactions with that person we tend to see everything as a slight against us. We are looking at the other person through poop colored lenses (nasty).
Have you ever heard the saying that “there is my story, their story, and the real story”? Our minds don’t catch as much as we think they do. Our minds is very good at taking 2 things and trying to connect them even if there is not a connection. Also, it is good at filling in the blanks, leading us to believe we saw the whole situation objectively when we did not. This is why magic works, we miss something and our mind tries to fill in the blank based on the context of the situation. Also, did you know we have a blind spot in the vision of both of our eyes? Your brain interprets what is around and tries to fill in the blind spot.
Have you ever considered that we have different definitions for the words we use? An example would be the word “budget”, to one person it means to keep them from spending money on things they want or need, but the other person defines it as a way to figure out where the money is going and make a plan so they can spend money on the things they want without stress. Maybe each person was using different definitions in the conversation which led to the misunderstanding.
We also make false memories where we create something that did not really happen, or our minds totally forget things in stressful events.
Consider it from another point of view. I doubt most people intend to hurt us especially the ones close to us. Maybe in these situations we should ask ourselves “what other reason would they say that to me”?
To sum up what I am trying to explain is that we are not as perfect as we think we are and neither is the person we have problems with. Therefore we could be the one wrong in this situation and it is a waste of time being upset about something which are not sure about.
I believe the best way to fix something is to take it head on, though with something emotionally charged we need to be very delicate about it so we do not exacerbate the problem. I feel the best way to resolve the issue is to sit down and talk about and share your feelings. In these situations I want to avoid saying “well you said …” instead say things like “when you said… it made me feel…” This helps the other person to understand your point if view.