My mom had a gift, an intuitive ability to understand people, sometimes
even before they understood themselves. That, in addition to her nearness to God,
allowed her to offer wisdom and healing to lost and hurting hearts.
I like to think of myself as intuitive, sometimes. It’s a great asset if you’re trying to understand how someone feels, but doesn’t help much with balancing your checkbook.
I think we all try to read people and situations. It’s easier for some of us than others, but with two-thirds of all communication being nonverbal we all rely heavily, not just on what we hear, but what we see.
Then our minds start to make sense of the image, like a puzzle, arranging the pieces until we can draw a conclusion.
It’s a great system that helps us understand what’s behind someone’s words. We don’t just know what they say, we know what they mean.
But we rarely get a complete image, so we fill in the gaps. We draw from our own stories and fill in the holes, like grabbing pieces out of another puzzle box to see if they fit.
The less I know of you, the more gaps in the image, the more gaps, the more I insert my own story. Basically, the more I don’t know, the more I make up. And I have a pretty active imagination.
The problem is my story doesn’t fit into yours. They are different. I am reading, evaluating and judging based on what little I see, then filtering it through my past.
The more I think about that, the scarier it sounds.
In the background of our conversations oozes a history of family, playground politics, childhood sweethearts, betrayal, hope, aggression, insecurity, affluence, failure, joy, poverty, loss, success and education, most of which I will never get to know.
Throw in race, religion and culture and it’s surprising we don’t have more protests, violence and war.
It’s bad enough in normal relationships, but then we make judgments based on what we see on TV, the internet, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. We claim to know the picture, based on one piece of a puzzle… just because it’s connected to 99 pieces of our own.
It’s easier to judge from the filter of your experience, than it is to inter into the pain of someone else’s. It’s sloppy and maybe even damaging, but it’s easy… and we do it all the time.
I like to think of myself as intuitive, sometimes. It’s a great asset if you’re trying to understand how someone feels, but doesn’t help much with balancing your checkbook.
I think we all try to read people and situations. It’s easier for some of us than others, but with two-thirds of all communication being nonverbal we all rely heavily, not just on what we hear, but what we see.
Then our minds start to make sense of the image, like a puzzle, arranging the pieces until we can draw a conclusion.
It’s a great system that helps us understand what’s behind someone’s words. We don’t just know what they say, we know what they mean.
But we rarely get a complete image, so we fill in the gaps. We draw from our own stories and fill in the holes, like grabbing pieces out of another puzzle box to see if they fit.
The less I know of you, the more gaps in the image, the more gaps, the more I insert my own story. Basically, the more I don’t know, the more I make up. And I have a pretty active imagination.
The problem is my story doesn’t fit into yours. They are different. I am reading, evaluating and judging based on what little I see, then filtering it through my past.
The more I think about that, the scarier it sounds.
In the background of our conversations oozes a history of family, playground politics, childhood sweethearts, betrayal, hope, aggression, insecurity, affluence, failure, joy, poverty, loss, success and education, most of which I will never get to know.
Throw in race, religion and culture and it’s surprising we don’t have more protests, violence and war.
It’s bad enough in normal relationships, but then we make judgments based on what we see on TV, the internet, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. We claim to know the picture, based on one piece of a puzzle… just because it’s connected to 99 pieces of our own.
It’s easier to judge from the filter of your experience, than it is to inter into the pain of someone else’s. It’s sloppy and maybe even damaging, but it’s easy… and we do it all the time.
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