20/20 Hindsight

I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel. ~Maya Angelou

I love those moments of epiphany when you reflect on a past situation or conversation and you realized what an ass you were. And there is nothing like a marriage and family therapy class to really spell those out for you.

"You should know, you were always so good at making me feel like shit"

What is it in a relationship that keeps us from effective communication? And what is it that then perpetuates this problem over weeks, months and year? We are so busy listening to people in order to fix them we lose all perspective in what the exercise of listening is supposed to get us, UNDERSTANDING. And this texting and email thing, they aren't helping.

"Words mean more than what is set down on paper. It takes the human voice to infuse them with deeper meaning."

We fail, miserably in some cases, to convey with our words that we love and accept someone just the way they are. Our thinking is wrong and we don't tell that friend, spouse or loved one that they are right that we understand, that we acknowledge that we are doing it wrong!

We say one thing and we act another and those ways of being are in conflict -

"I love them and they hate me. I'll never love them again. I hate them!"

Valid feeling? Absolutely! What's our pat response? Something tremendously lame, to the affect of, "remember that feelings of hate only beget more feelings of hate." No, inability to validate and accept the feelings and frustrations of another is a monumental failure. First validate, accept and be willing to take influence.

Worse, how I act versus what I say makes you feel "like shit" and when you can't articulate those feelings and frustrations, well, we all get angry and say things we don't mean. In our narcissistic society, it's all about "me". We spend all our time playing the justification game. We are compelled to want to kick each other square in the nuts. Or poke the living hell out of each other.

We spiral into vast holes of misunderstanding and at that point, it doesn't matter what we say or what we TRY to communicate, we're stuck. And we refuse to see that the problem, is our own damn fault.

We wonder why people get divorced or tell each other to piss off and then never speak again? We are so dysfunctional.Lessons like this, suck. They cost friendships, marriages and sometimes family relationships. And it's never our immediate vision that is 20/20, it's that damn hindsight.

That backseat driver of mine needs to talk louder.....I don't want hingsight, I want foresight.