When I feel like I’m speaking a different language, people don’t understand me, Or I’m looking at people like they’re crazy because I don’t understand them, it feels like fight or flight, like I’m out of my skin.  I have to realize, they’re just as scattered as I am on the inside.  I’m sure we’ve all had the experience where we’re talking to someone and we are well aware the message just isn’t hitting home.  That hamster is going for a ride around the wheel and about to fly off.  But the state of the world now lives little room for anything but confusion and distraction and for people to try and keep up with the incessant barrage of change and speed and fear.  It can feel like we’re speaking different languages—and to a degree we are—but it make sense that we would because our minds are protecting us.  We feel like we’re behind or we don’t have the right thing to say but we don’t want to be rude so we say nothing.  Or far simpler, we can’t hear the person and we don’t want to ask them to repeat themselves a fourth time so we nod, missing the point.  We ALL feel this way.  So the point is this: we are trained to preserve and protect ourselves so we will do our best to feign knowledge and awareness but there are times the mind and body can’t keep up. 

I’m convinced this is how many of the most common disagreements start—we can’t keep up and we’re trying to make decisions while we are already depleted.  We don’t hear each other or we just want to respond and move on.  There are studies that show patients with hearing issues are more prone to dementia.  I understand that.  They aren’t able to sense or function with the world in a way so they are disconnected from what’s around them.  Their mind isn’t able to keep up because it isn’t working with the most current information.  So when we aren’t connecting with each other or fully speaking the same language, of course we misunderstand each other.  The human mind seeks to make sense of what it takes in through the senses and we are trained to make choices as quickly as possible so if we don’t have all the information of course we won’t be able to make the right choice—we won’t be speaking the same language because we’re operating with part of the story.  We have to remember that everyone feels like that at some point.  We all feel like we’re behind or that people don’t understand us. 

So instead of feeling like we are victims or misunderstood, take the time to truly understand what’s going on.  If we don’t fully understand something then make the effort to understand.  Ask the questions until we can get on the same page.  I’d rather have someone get angry at me for asking too many questions rather than assume I know something I don’t.  And look, we are human and misunderstandings will happen no matter what we do, that’s just the nature of it.  The key is when we start to feel like we are off or like something isn’t going how it should, it isn’t what we understood, we need to train ourselves that it’s ok to pause and put in a little bit of time to figure out what is going on.  Think about how frustrating it is when we can’t hear each other or when someone isn’t seeing a situation our way.  And you can’t tell me we all didn’t have that one time when we couldn’t see what the hell was on that “Magic Eye” drawing—it was frustrating to not see what other people could.  So we KNOW what that feels like.  So the next time we feel a certain way about something, take a breath and ask ourselves if there is some sort of misunderstanding occurring in that moment and what we can do to get to the root of the issue.  The sooner we speak the same language, the sooner we can arrive at the best conclusion for everyone.