Battles In Our Head

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

To begin with, anecdote.

The guy's trousers are not ironed. But he has no iron.

He decides to borrow an iron from a neighbor.

He goes to a neighbor and on the way reflects:

Now I will come and ask for an iron.

The neighbor is a cultured woman, she will offer to come in and have tea.

I can’t refuse, I’ll come.

So, conversations will begin, and she is a beautiful woman, and I seem to be nothing.

Will offer something stronger - I also can not refuse.

So it will reach the bed. And I am an honest man, I have to marry, and what next?

Diapers, undershirts, swearing, divorce …"

With this thought, he goes to the door of a neighbor and presses the bell button.

The door opens and the man blurts out:

"Fuck you with your iron!"

Funny. But this is what happens most often. We come up with something for ourselves about something or someone, consider it from all sides, procrastinate, apply our templates and stereotypes, and as a result of misunderstanding, resentment, quarrels.

We always interpret the actions or inactions of others through the prism of our trauma. For example, if a person's main psychological sore is rejection and her motto is “Nobody loves me,” then he will evaluate any words, actions of others, looking at them through this glass. And this glass will distort the real picture.

I did not wait for the right call on time - this is because they forgot about me.

Someone is late for a meeting - well, of course, who am I to him, you don't have to rush to see me!

My wife forgot to iron her shirt - this is how she shows me her indifference.

The husband did not answer the SMS - I knew that he didn’t even have a minute for me!

Etc.

As they say, it would be funny if it were not so sad.

Everyone has their own reality in their heads, conditioned by their experience. We think, communicate, act based on this reality. In fact, it turns out that this has nothing to do with the actual state of affairs. All battles are in our head.

For example, if the husband did not respond to your SMS, there may be many reasons for this - he did not hear the beep, left the phone in the car, the SMS did not reach, decided that he would answer later, because at work there was an urgent matter, he was thinking about the answer, he started answer, but someone distracted and forgot, etc. There are many reasons, but the cockroaches in your head have already trumpeted a general gathering, quickly made homemade slogans and rally under the banners of righteous anger for undeserved treatment!

In general, this is amazing - we come up with something to explain a person's act, we ask others what it could mean or what he wanted to say by that, we puzzle what to do next, based on these explanations invented by ourselves!

In fact, we will only come up with what we are afraid of, and all explanations will contain a detailed layout of our own fears. Cockroaches dance their own dance, energized by themselves!

We can never know with an accuracy of 100 percent what another person thinks or feels, why he performs certain actions. We can pile up our own interpretations and increase misunderstandings between us, or we can use the great gift of nature - human language. Literally. Open your mouth and say in human words, ask, clarify. This removes a lot of problems.

Every time you feel indignation, discontent and hot tears of resentment are about to sprinkle from your eyes, turn to yourself - does the person know what you want and what you expect from him? Did you tell him about it? Have you made it clear how important this is to you?

In the overwhelming majority of cases, people do not wish us bad at all. They simply do not have the time and desire to peer into our inner world and understand our subtle mental settings. People are busy with themselves, their affairs and their cockroaches.

But the same people are capable of a lot - they are ready to choose the time, postpone their affairs, sacrifice their rest and tranquility, if we let them know what we need, if we ask, if we offer to clarify the situation.

People are kind and helpful. You just need to stop making up your stories and rely on facts.

He didn’t answer me on SMS - it’s a fact.

He did not answer me on SMS, because he does not even have a minute for me - this is history.

Everything that follows the statement of fact after the words “because” is your story about this person. It is you who sit and compose what a sinister he is and what other insidious plans he has in order to offend you and push you into a far corner. Cockroaches sing jaga-jaga and practice dance steps.

Hour after hour, day after day, you live in your story, it poisons your serene existence, deprives you of Zen tranquility and erodes relationships.

And what about the sinister, because of which all the fuss? And he doesn't even know about the battle unfolding in your head. He has his own business. By the way, (ha-ha-ha!) He may be busy writing his own story about you and some of your, incomprehensible to him, action.

That is why I made it a rule to explain why I am doing this, and not otherwise, what is behind this or that of my reactions.

True, not everyone wants to hear … It so happens that a person's own stories are more important than reality. But this is no longer my territory.