4 Emotional Triggers That Secretly Influence YOUR Life!
When messages are misunderstood. Interpersonal relationships are characterized by communication, which can take place on many levels, usually several of them operating in parallel. The spoken word serves only one frequency, the other person also receives facial expressions and gestures that go along with it, as well as the tone of voice and the qualities of the relationship itself.
Some conversations fail right from the start because we don't like our conversational partners, consider them incompetent, or it's someone who monologues and we therefore often pull the plug as soon as she or he takes a breath. But our perception also plays tricks on us from time to time.
It is influenced by our mood, our state of mind and the situation in which the conversation takes place, which is unfortunately easy to misunderstand. In this article, we'll show you four common misconceptions about communication that occur quite often.
1. A “no” is not a rejection
Even if it's not the answer of our choice. Just because a person refuses to do us a favor or help us once, doesn't automatically mean we don’t matter to them. Everyone has a life, in fact most have rather too much of one, not to mention an overflowing schedule. It may well hit you wrong and irritate you in the moment, but in most cases a “no” is not bad news, nor does it have anything to do with you personally. Also remember that people are not obliged to explain themselves to you.
On the other hand, if you start to insist on another answer or an explanation, it may very well have a negative effect on the future of the relationship. After all, no one likes to be verbally pushed to the wall and emotionally blackmailed. By the way, such situations are excellent test situations for long-term relationships and friendships. If there has always been an imbalance and one or the other is always the giving end of the relationship, it will come out clearly with repeated no’s.
2. Dependency triggers panic
Especially people who are used to being the captain on their ship all year round face a real problem when they become dependent on other people. It starts with little things like carpooling, when your driver is late, or the nice neighbor who signed up for babysitting, but doesn't show up.
Even at work, it's annoying and inconvenient when you can't get on with your to-dos because a document from accounting or an important piece of information from the warehouse is missing. Those used to juggling all balls in the air will easily panic, if being dependent on others suddenly becomes the all-deciding factor.
On the one hand, you don't know what it's like to have to rely on others, and on the other hand, you may not have had any good experiences with this, so you simply lack the necessary sympathy. If you are also fixed on the fact that humanity is unreliable and untrustworthy, you will of course not be disappointed according to the law of attraction in your bleak view. So there is no need to panic if some other link in the chain proves not too strong. You can ask kindly and the issue often resolves magically.
Of course, in the future you can always try to expand your independence even further and celebrate a life lived on your own terms to the utmost. The problem with this is that no one is an island. Unless you want to live as a hermit in the woods, you won't be spared cooperation and coexistence with other people in the long run.
3. Unexpected reactions are understood as rejection
Who hasn’t experienced this: You firmly expect a very specific answer, and then what comes is unexpected. What happened? Is it because of some long-past event you’re still carrying around? Our brain starts to run at full speed almost immediately, and we play through all possible and unfortunately also the completely impossible scenarios again and again.
In the end, we can only come to the conclusion that we have fallen out of favor and our companionship is no longer desired. In fact, there can be 1000 really good reasons why other people react in such a way that’s not expected. Why we immediately react so negatively can have many causes.
If we have had to experience rejection in our lives many times before, we naturally shy away from the smallest signs that it might happen again. We brace ourselves for the worst and immediately go on the defensive.
4. Helpfulness or paternalism?
The case can be similarly complicated if someone means well with us and we interpret it nevertheless as total paternalism. However, very few people have the time, energy and interest to take their environment under their wing. There are of course a few exceptional talents who have to interfere always and everywhere, but you’ll pin them sooner or later.
So if a good friend or family member wants to help, it's only for one reason, because they want to help you in the best possible way. Even if this form of affection is highly repugnant to you, you should be grateful. Not everyone has such a team in the background to help with advice and action, even if it sounds like interference to you.
Also, some people have that certain tone of voice that always sounds a bit like a school marm. Again, knowing-it-all is not necessarily on their agenda, even if it may sound suspiciously like it to our ears.
Today’s Conclusion:
Long-term relationships in particular should be given the benefit of the doubt. It is better to forget about an unexpected or negative word or two than to question a good and stable friendship. Not all people think before they speak. In fact, very few do.
If you're sensitive or easily rattled, you may get the wrong idea. If in doubt, it is worthwhile to ask politely but directly what was meant by what was just said. We humans are a sum of feelings and thoughts that do not always operate at the same frequency as those of our fellow human beings.
Many a supposed verbal low blow soon turns out to be a simple misunderstanding and is therefore not worth the trouble. Also pointless are spending hours of back and forth thinking about how someone might have meant something or interpreting and playing through mental mazes, which not only costs energy and valuable life time, it usually brings nothing but headaches.
You certainly won't get a clear and satisfying answer by mulling it over on your own, and clarity is known to be the quintessence of any successful communication. That's it for today.