Let God Write Your Love Story: Understanding

Seek First to Understand

We live in a culture that prizes the complexity of the individual. We’ve been conditioned to believe that we are each uniquely complex, perhaps more complex than others. The challenge this brings to our relationships is that walk into potential conflict with the primary goal of being understood. It’s important to understand, and then be understood. When each person is seeking first to be understood a collision is inevitable.

We’ve each been there. Someone is trying to share their perspective or opinion and they quickly trip our response mechanism and we start formulating our response while they’re still talking. We’re so focused on our own perspective, we can’t listen enough to understand theirs. They pause. We jump into our own explanation, quickly trip their response mechanism, and they engage the same response formulating process without listening to us. Around and around we go.

Now change the goals of each person to first understanding, then being understood. That’s the kind of conversation that could put a man on the moon! When two unique people with different preferences, experiences, opinions, expectations, habits… live together as college roommates, husband and wife, parent and child… conflict is inevitable. But communication breakdowns are not. Most communication breakdowns occur when someone, or everyone, is more focused on being understood than understanding. 

Lead Wisely, 

John