We nod our heads and say "I understand."
Do we really understand those around us -- friends in crisis, strangers in need, people surrounded by injustice?
Too many times, we use the words "I understand" to mean something quite opposite -- something along the lines of "Please stop talking, I can't really handle this." It's easy to tell when we are saying "I understand" to stop the flow of a difficult story, because the words come out of a sense of rising panic.
We can't understand until we open up and sit with someone's words and feelings. We need to listen without prejudging to get the message. We need to make meaning of their words to understand. If we can't do this, we need to find someone else to listen.
We might be tempted to offer solutions -- we can't truly understand if we're doing this, because we're searching for the problems to solve. We're not using the silence between words to understand, but to select what we think is the big problem to solve.
To truly understand is to accept what the other says -- not accepting it as universal truth, but accept it as that person's truth. This can be sobering, frightening, or terrifying at times. But understanding is the first step to bridging the gap between people, to healing hurts, to changing the world.
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