A collaboration between POW and Krishnadeva Pentayah (IG: @krino.potter)
Many of us are prone to being victims of misunderstandings: we either misread the situation or are misread. It ultimately boils down to whether people understand where we are coming from or if we perceive things differently from what’s intended.
Recently, I’ve been reading a book called: The things you can see only when you slow down, by Haemin Sumin. In its plethora of wisdom and wonder, there are multiple quotes which nestle in the preconceived notions of understanding and comprehension. It got me thinking: as a human race, most of our depressive state comes from the fact that people don’t understand us. Whether it’s our likes, opinions or our entirety; we usually get the short end of the stick because our immaculately formulated thoughts seem to pixelate upon delivery. On the other hand, we can’t find the correct words to use, often blotching the intended meaning of what it is we wanted to portray. This often breeds temporary frustration, which can become its own chronic disease upon repetitive events. Thus, resulting in numerous negative feedback cycles and blows from criticism.
However, how often have we ever stopped to ask ourselves if we are the common denominator here. In Mr. Sumin’s book, he mentions that ‘if we look closely, we see its not the situation that is troubling us, but our perspective on it...If you’ve been unable to change a bad situation, even after many attempts, you should change how you look at the situation.’ He continues by referring to how our minds are responsible for the way we engage in a situation and the intensity at which we feel its emotions by-product because: ‘What our minds focus on becomes our world...the world is experienced according to the state of one’s mind’. This aligns with Pitashree (Krishna), which also rejoins the Buddha’s: ‘What we think, we become’.
The human brain is at times a funnily uncooperative organism. I know I would be offending biologists when I use the word “organism”, knowing that our brain is primarily an organ. However, our brain is indeed, for me (as a scientist) an organ, but as a philosopher and a thinker, it is ultimately a very complex organism. Built by our own ideologies and limited by the layers of societal, institutional, academic or any other types of indoctrination - our brain has the capacity to decide on our fate. It is not how we react to situations that count but how we respond to them. Therefore, our brains possess the ability to think thoughts, which later become our words, and thereafter our actions - impacting our micro-behaviours. Thus, building habits – ultimately creating our identity: how we perceive, respond and adapt to both inner and outer phenomena of reality.
In society, we are either labelled or categorised for our behaviour and actions. However, nobody goes beyond the surface level to understand the circumstances which instigate those actions or behaviours. Most of the time the core issue is deeply embedded in psychology. Mind over matter. Every one of us are, in-part, products of our very own ill-fated or unsuspected traumas. Ever wondered why you struggle to express yourself? Or why you don’t have an opinion on something? Or why you’re a people pleaser or behave the way you do? Sometimes this stems from adverse (childhood) trauma that we may not identify or that’s buried so far down, that we deem to be unfamiliar.
Due to this, we may find ourselves in altercations or situations where the reason we do something, or don’t, is not understood by the next person. No one person is at fault in this regard; however, we can petition for self-awareness and compassion from ourselves and others. On our side, we can start by being accountable, begin inner healing and cultivate self-awareness. Society should adopt a compassionate mindset and begin to understand a person before responding impulsively and vice versa. It is necessary to unlearn the things that don’t serve us and discover those which do. As Vex King mentions: ‘inner healing is the set of letting go of past conditioning, creating a new, empowering belief system for ourselves, and embracing the unknowns of the future with the confidence that we’re strong and capable – no matter what comes our way’.
Glossary:
1. Nestle: settle or lie comfortably within or against something.
2. Pixelate: divide into many pixels.
3. Indoctrination: the process of teaching a person or group to accept a set of beliefs uncritically.
4. Immaculate: In a clean, tidy manner or without mistakes (flawless).
Image source: Pixabay
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