There is a saying that, “Complete undertstanding leads to complete forgiveness” – I was discussing this with some students on one of my courses this week. When we fully understand a situation from all aspects, then it allows any anger (or other emotion) that may have been triggered to be released. If the emotion is still present, there is something we have not yet understood completely.
From the therapuetic viewpoint, understanding is something that it is vital to develop, in order to fully appreciate our client’s way of looking at the world – and also that we as therapists seek in order to help our client to understand the why behind their problem… “Why do I do this?”, or “Why do I think like this?” Often, when the client develops an understanding of the why, they are then more able to resolve their issues and move on, because they create self-forgiveness – this lack of self-acceptance may in part be the issue behind the problem in the first case.
Self-acceptance is an extremely important aspect of our sense of wellbeing; how much self-acceptance do we have? Are we kind to ourselves? Do we label ourselves with unpleasant names (such as “stupid”, or worse!) when we talk to ourselves? Do we understand ourselves at all…? It is important for us to pay close attention to our feelings as we go through our day; what am I feeling right now, and why…? Is it because I have just criticised myself, or some other reason?
Another major contributor to our sense of wellbeing is whether or not our needs are being met… If we think of our feelings as a sort of barometer, we can tell if our needs are being met or not by whether we feel good or not – feeling good = needs being met.
So if we are not feeling good, then do we understand what need of ours is not being met? Sometimes it can be hard to make the connection, especially if we haven’t developed the skill to listen to ourselves… and especially if we are also used to looking after everyone else’s needs at the expense of our own. We might not even think we deserve to have needs!
But to have needs is part of every being’s right, and if we deny our needs then we end up feeling angry or resentful… Remember what I said about anger? If we are feeling angry because we are meeting everyone else’s needs and not our own, then we need to pay attention! When did we decide that we were less important than everyone else? What is it that we are failing to understand here…?
We are all of equal importance, and your needs carry the same weight as everyone else’s. It is our responsibility to communicate our feelings and needs with others, so they can also understand how they can help us to meet our needs. That way, everybody’s needs are met, and everybody feels good as a result; if we don’t, there is something that we are still not understanding.
