It was my turn two weeks ago to pick a spiritual principle for our study group to focus on for our next gathering. We spend two weeks contemplating a principle then get together to share what we got from that time spent asking for insight. The principle I chose was: “We are invisible to others. Only our actions are seen. No one can read our mind, nor are they interested in doing so.” As I contemplated this, I found that my own life was hugely a reflection of not understanding this basic piece of information. I can barely consider how many ways my life would have been different if I had understood this from an early age. If it had been taught to me, it clearly went in one ear and out the other without any impact being made.
As children, our brains are still very simply wired. As such, our understanding of the world is very simple. With experience, we form a vast network of connections between our brain cells that provide us with some degree of understanding of how the world works. As a child, like any child, I had my thoughts and feelings front and center in my world. My every waking moment was filled with these, so naturally, I assumed everyone else could also feel and know what I was feeling and knowing. This belief was reinforced by the experience that my parents knew when I was hungry or cold or sad or any number of other things, or at least it seemed like they knew. So naturally, I assumed everyone had this awareness. After all, what could be more important than what I was feeling? Except, this responsiveness to my feeling needs seemed to diminish each time a new baby was added to the family. By the time my brother then the second sister showed up, I was pretty much on my own with my feelings. But even with that direct experience, I never imagined that everyone did not know what I was feeling. I just figured that I was not important anymore. Babies always seemed to take priority.
This skewed perception, unfortunately, coincided with our family moving into a very small town where everyone knew each other since birth. I started school there in fourth grade where I was always the “new kid”, a kind of alien of unknown qualities that left me on the outside socially for the next eight years, until leaving town and going off to college. I could never understand this. Why was I an outsider since they could obviously see that I was just a kid like them with the same thoughts and feelings as they had? My flawed assumption was that they could see and feel my insides when in fact they couldn’t. I was already an introvert by nature and completely failed to shine out and express who I was to them to make the bridges and connections to them. I actually believed that it was their job to see who I was and connect appropriately. Well, that didn’t happen. Since it didn’t happen, I came to the conclusion that there must be something wrong with me, that I was somehow different in a way that they did not like. The truth I could never see was that I was simply invisible and therefore unknown. People shy away from the unknown. The unknown is possibly unsafe and therefore should be avoided.
I have often joked that I was raised by wolves and that is why I am the way I am. But the truth is I was so quiet with my peers that I was like the song “Cellophane Man” in the musical “Chicago” – people looked through me like I wasn’t even there. I am sure there were lots of us invisible people that you never really knew back in high school or even now at work. My story is just one version of a much larger truth: we are all invisible to others. No one knows what we are thinking or feeling until we express it. And even then, the chance that they understand what we are thinking and feeling are almost zero, because the words we use to express ourselves with others have personal meaning to us that will have different personal meanings to those listening to us. For you English majors out there, I am referring to the individual connotations words have for each of us beyond the actual denotations for the words themselves. The problem that usually results is that we believe that others actually understand what we say and what we mean simply because we express something. Or if you are from the school of thought I fell into, you should know what I am thinking and feeling simply because I exist. I see this all the time with couples. How often have you heard the words “you should have known what I wanted, or what I was feeling.” People seriously get their feelings hurt when those around them do not magically know what they are feeling or wanting. The unspoken assumption is that our needs and wants are so important that everyone should know what they are without us having to express them.
Just to make things a little more complex, the question comes up “What do I feel and what do I want?” I don’t know about you, but my answer to those questions changes day by day and hour by hour. Even within the same minute, I will have conflicting desires. It is like I have a whole bunch of different parts of myself all wanting different things all at the same time. Maybe it is a good thing that no one can read our minds. If they could they would either be completely confused or just conclude that we are crazy.
Here is the hard truth: No one can read our minds or hearts, nor are they interested in doing so. What “they” want is to believe that we feel the same way and want the same things they do. They want validation for their wants and feelings. There is no attraction to feeling our differences from them. Even co-dependent parents that specialize in anticipating their child’s every need and want, still end up projecting their needs and wants into the child. Of course, your child wants to learn to ride a bike. After all, you really enjoyed bike riding when you were a kid. Or maybe you insist your child really wants to take tap dancing and enter beauty contests. It’s pretty doubtful that they really want that.
So where does that leave us? We are invisible and communicating our heartfelt truth is really difficult. From my own experience, keeping quiet and expecting others to just know how to participate with my wants does not work very well. Well, what is it we are trying to create through participating with others? Maybe we want to be taken care of, or maybe we want supportive friends, or maybe we want control over others so we can feel safe, or maybe we just want to feel important. The list of maybes is very long. Basically, we participate with others because we want something, even if it is just a venue for our service to life. This desire gives us the answer to the dilemma of our fundamental invisibility. We have the ability to communicate, however flawed that process may be. Communication is designed to make an impact; to create a response in the listener. That response is feedback for us. Is what we communicated supporting our getting our desires, or is it failing and we need to try a different type of communication.
Utilizing the feedback life gives us constantly to moderate or upgrade our output is a fundamental life skill that so many people feel is unnecessary. The entitlement story is something like “they should just understand me the first time.” Another one is “they must be stupid if they don’t see it my way.” The entitlement to be understood is built out of that early misconception that others can read our minds. Because of this belief, we conclude that when people don’t respond the way we want, it must be because they are purposefully withholding from us. They are abusing us. It does not occur to us that they simply don’t know what we meant and have nothing to gain in trying to understand us. We do not make our communication a win-win experience. If our communication is basically just demands for attention, meeting our needs, our way, or to be most important, then there is no reason for others to listen to us. They have their own needs to meet. But when they have something to gain by listening to us, even if it is just positive feelings of connection, then we can adjust our communication to be more effective. We may have to run through the feedback cycle a dozen times before we feel successful, but it is doable. Folks don’t see that communication is generally a form a mutual meeting of needs. It is in the mutuality that real communication takes place and we can feel seen and heard.
Take care,
David