by Petra Juhászová (UK)
‘Please just understand me!’ Why can’t you understand me?’
How many times we said these sentences or anything similar. I am sure that we can immediately think of a few crucial conversations where we were emotionally involved (or not), and these sentences left our lips as one of the last signs of our frustration. We have all been there. We have all done it.
What would happen if we reversed the question? Instead of asking somebody else, we ask ourselves the question to find the answer. ‘What is stopping me from expressing my feelings openly?’ We need to look for the answer first within. We created the ‘problem’ we can find the solution too. But we need to use a different mindset to solve this problem from the mindset we had when this problem was created, just as Albert Einstein said it.
The real questions are: ‘Do you understand YOURSELF? Do you understand your feelings?’
When we mention feelings many times, people get defensive. They immediately make the connection that is showing our feelings are somehow a weakness, or somehow inappropriate. Many of us grew up with this belief. We need to be strong and tough if we want to achieve something, as the old adage goes. In this area of instant gratification and competition (for some) everyone is trying to get to the finish line before the other person.