I had an experience yesterday that made me realise something about how we see other people. When I refer to other people I mean all people, the ones that are close to us, the ones we only see now and then and it also refers to people we know in the news or media.
I was having a conversation with someone, and it was not going as smoothly as I would have liked. Afterwards I was reflecting upon the conversation and was in a place of being open and looking for how and what I was projecting into the situation and onto the other person.
I love this about human interaction and relationships. I find it fascinating how others and life reflect back to us our beliefs and thoughts.
Anyway upon reflection I noticed that what I had been saying to this person was getting twisted and turned into something entirely different than what I was saying. Have you ever experienced this? When you are talking to someone and it all gets twisted and you are left scratching your head and wondering how did they get that from what you were saying? Well that was what it was like for me yesterday, not only once but with many things that were said, and then you end up in a discussion about what you meant and they disagree with you and around it goes. Not only I found this happening with what I was saying, they were saying they same about me, that I was twisting what was said into something different. At that point they could not see that they the were doing it too but said it is only me that was turning things around.
Me being curious and wanting to know if this was in fact true, I sat and reflected about it all and I come to realise that it boils down to how we see the other person, what believes we have of them. I heard myself saying and thinking that this person only thinks certain things about me, that they only see me a certain way and it doesn’t matter how I turn up and what I say or show them, they will only see what aligns with their believes about me. I thought wow, yeah, that is so true.
I also saw the same applied to me, that I too was holding certain believes about this person and because of what I thought about them and the situation, that is all I could see. If what they said did not match my beliefs then somehow in my mind I had to change them to fit my view. I had to turn and twist them to fit my point of view. I was seeing them through the filters of my judgements and beliefs of them. I saw that the other person and the situation were reflecting back to me what I could not see within myself.
I will give you an example of what I mean.
Lets say you believe that someone is disrespectful and never listens to you, talks over you, does not show any regard for you in any way. Now this is your belief of them, sure past events may have led you to have this belief but for now lets just agree you believe this is true for this person.
Now every time you have any contact or interaction, a conversation, you will only see what you believe about them, they might be displaying kindness and being caring, listening to you and being nice, but you will not see this, you can’t, it doesn’t match what you believe about them, so somehow you have to turn their behaviour, their words and their actions around so it fits your believes, you wont be able to see the kindness and niceness, they are up to something, you can’t trust them. They are only being nice because they want something from you.
It is the same about the other person as well, no matter how you show up they will only see what they believe about you.
This is why we get the situations where what we say and do is turned and twisted into something completely different than what we said or did. Different from our intentions.
Remember when you were falling in love with someone, and no matter what they did or said it was so amazing and wonderful, all you could see was how nice and great this person was, they were perfect in every way, right? You were seeing them through rose coloured glasses.
What happens to this? Somewhere along the line we are hurt by them, and from this we formed a different believe about them, we started to see them differently, we started to believe they were not perfect after all and perhaps we even then went looking for all the ways they are not perfect and because we looked for them, we found all the faults and weaknesses. Now our opinion and believes about have certainly changed from the beginning, right?
At this stage there maybe more fights and conflict within the relationship, due to you or both of you having different beliefs and you attract into your life through people and situations what you belief.
So, until we change what we think about others and what we believe about them, nothing will change. We have to the past the past and take each day as a fresh new day and see them as at soul level, a beautiful soul that is having a human experience just like you and is creating their live from their thoughts and believes just like you are.
Perhaps we need to dig out those rose coloured glasses, put them on and look upon others from a brand new perspective, we need to see them in new light and when we do it will change how our relationships with others for the better. If we believe they are good and loving people, then that will be our experience.
Robyn Lemsing
30th March 2018