Being misunderstood by others
When my son, Robbie, was 16 months old, I remember making a Mother’s Day card for my wife, Christy. It involved the use of paint to make hand and foot prints on the card. I struggled in juggling my baby son, coating his hand in green paint and placing it on the card. My wife walked in at a critical moment to discover her precious boy, and the new outfit he was in, and half the bathroom, covered in green paint. Understandably, she was a bit upset. I apologised and helped clean up. Christy later came to appreciate my motivation behind this escapade and said her card was one of the loveliest things I had ever given her.
Have you ever been in a situation where you were totally misunderstood or your actions seen in a way that was not intended? It can be very frustrating, especially if the other person cast your actions in a negative light. Our usual response is to try to explain our true intentions or to retaliate to the unnecessary criticism we believe we are receiving. However, this tends to only produce a stronger emotional response from the other as their feelings are not being appropriately responded to.
It’s strange isn’t it? We tend to judge ourselves by our intentions and others by their actions. When we retaliate, we are slow to judge our own actions. Instead we justify them by saying we had good reason, such as, we were provoked or needed to defend ourselves.
We are often better to judge people more by their intentions than by their actions. This can be difficult, but it is fairer, since we prefer it when people look beyond our mistakes to discern our true intent. As we do this, we are likely to respond in a less defensive way and have more compassion. The important part here is that we have to understand their intentions and motivation as they see them and not as we see them.
Furthermore, if we judged ourselves by how our actions are perceived by others, we may become more sensitive and understanding of any hurtful responses by them. We may become more alert to how we are coming across and less focused on defending ourselves. Ultimately, when someone has been hurt inadvertently by our actions, we are better to respond to their hurt, than we are to explain ourselves. In brief, their hurt is more important than our explanation. There is a time for explanations of course, but such explanations are unlikely to be heard when the other person is hurt or upset.
We are better to acknowledge their perspective and how they are feeling, apologise for how our behaviour came across as hurtful, even though this was not intended, and perhaps ask what we can do to make it up to them. As the other person feels more understood, they are often in a better position to let go of their hurt and hear our explanation. We have to be careful in not using any explanation to excuse any actions which were obviously hurtful.
It also helps if we resist the urge to attack the other person or withdraw from them due to how they are speaking to us. As you offer things for the future that takes into account their feelings and perspective, their hurt is further diminished. Actions of course speak louder than words. As we show understanding and, do what it is that we offered, we will be speaking volumes.
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Ken Warren, known as ‘The Doctor of Difficult People’, is Australia’s leading speaker on the topic. He can show you how to turn difficult customers and co-workers into pussycats, make great teams even better, and achieve better outcomes with challenging clients. Check out his free resources at www.positivepeoplesolutions.com.au
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