Just because you don’t understand it doesn’t mean it isn’t so...

Are there people in your life that you try so hard to get along with, but you somehow always leave the interaction feeling disheartened, sad or angry? Are there people you dread running into or spending time with because there's just something about them that strips you of your power, either provoking you into acting "crazy" or somehow always managing to make you give up something that's important to your well-being? Interacting with them might just make you feel really bad about yourself, or they may say and do things that don't sit quite right with you. And when you share something about yourself, you feel judged by others. It feels like no one understands you. But that hardly represents how we perceive ourselves and that’s why we feel misunderstood.

Know why you need people to understand you. I used to feel frustrated when others can’t see my point of view. To me, there’s more than one way of doing things and not everyone wants the same things in life. But one day, I thought to myself, “Is it really important that others understands me? Why do I need others to know me? I know what I’m doing. I’m fully responsible for my life. Even if others don’t understand me, I’m still going ahead with my plans, right?” I realized I’m not really upset when people don’t understand me. The real problem is that I felt a lack of love, connection, and support from others. I wanted approval and validation. Therefore, examine your need for people to understand you. Do you get happier when someone understands you? Do you really need everyone to understand you? Showing yourself more love and acceptance may be more important than getting people to know you.

Understand how you contribute to the misunderstanding. When we assume people won’t understand us, we don’t make the effort to get ourselves understood. The contrary is also true. When we don’t share much about ourselves, people don’t get the chance to understand us. Before you blame others for not understanding you enough, perhaps you could look at how you contribute to the misunderstanding. If you really want others to get you, change the way you communicate with others. Be more explicit and open.

Gauge whether the person is interested in understanding you. Not everyone is willing to listen or open to new ideas. Some are very fixated with their point of view and it’s really pointless to get them to understand. First, it’s so much easier to connect with someone who is interested in you. Second, people don’t like it when they are forced to accept an opinion. Most would try to resist and some might even resent you. Third, there’s nothing much you can do when someone doesn’t wish to understand, other than accepting they don’t wish to understand. So how do you tell when someone isn’t interested in understanding you? You can tell when someone doesn’t allow you to complete your sentences. Some people are just more interested in what they have to share than what you want to say. Not everyone is good at listening. It’s better to lower our expectations for others.

Let go the need to explain. There are times when people are interested to know you, but they just don’t get you. There is really no need to get frustrated over that. Being interested in you and asking you to repeat already show that they care about you. You do your best in explaining, but if they don’t understand, it’s okay. That is just a perception gap.

You don’t have to be right all the time. Being open and considering another person’s point of view doesn’t mean you have to follow their view in the end. Let go of the need to explain or defend yourself. Seek first to understand their perception, but know that their perception belongs to them. It shouldn’t affect the way you see yourself.

Just let them be. We all trying to get people to be more like us. Be it more empathetic, more logical, more dutiful or more spontaneous. The best is actually understand other people’s differences and respect their differences.

Focus on oneness, not the differences. The reason why we feel so hurt when people don’t understand us is that we focus too much on the differences. You see yourself as an individual and everyone else as separate from you, other than you.

One day, I was on my usual walk in the evening and felt this deep connection with the crowd on the street. It was beautiful. Usually, I avoid crowds, but that day, I felt the oneness with everyone on the street. It reinforced the feeling that we all belong to the same source.