they won't understand (and you'll be ok)
| the fall outs of pain | a series |
Nothing deflates me more than when someone doesn’t get me — even though I actively acknowledge that I can be a tough shell to crack. But when someone who should know and understand does something that makes me feel unknown or unseen, I get so sad.
To be loved is to be known. When we feel like we aren’t known, we feel like we aren’t loved.
We want to be known and to be understood and unfortunately, one of the things that falls out because of pain is often understanding.
When you go through something impossible - a crisis, a trauma, a diagnosis, a painful relationship split, a church split, spiritual abuse, divorce, an affair - one of the ways you process it is to tell the story over and over and over again. You retell it to anyone who will listen, to yourself, to your journal, to a therapist, to strangers in the grocery store. In the telling and retelling, we are trying to do two things : to understand it for ourselves and to be understood by others.
We’re seeking validation for our experiences and our emotions, not because we want to be “right” but because we want to be seen. We want our pain to be understood. When our painful stories are received with warmth and curiosity, we heal, piece by piece. But when our pain meets brick walls of judgment or disinterest, our need to be understood activates our defenses.
How many times have you thought, if I could just make them understand … We think that healing and acceptance is on the other side of someone else understanding us so we fight to be understood.
We talk, we over explain, we tell the same stories, we get defensive, we lash out, we yell, we try to use metaphors and analogies, we exhaust ourselves trying to speak in a language that other people will understand and when they don’t, we fight, and when we can’t fight anymore, we deflate.
We want to be understood because we want to be loved.
Our pain needs a soft place to land and when our pain and our responses to that pain are refused, the pain puts us in emotional and spiritual sepsis.
Let me tell you something that’s true, but is really difficult to process :
Some people will remain committed to the narrative they have about you no matter how much time passes, no matter how much you change, and no matter how much you explain yourself. They will not understand — ever. And you just have to be ok with that.
You can’t live your life seeking the understanding and acceptance of others. When you live in a constant state of thinking about yourself in the eyes of other people, you become completely disconnected from yourself. You live in the heads of other people, observing yourself, but never living from yourself. You process everything through the lens of : Will they understand? Which is really another way of asking, “will they accept me?” Eventually, you disconnect from the Holy Spirit entirely and the voice of Jesus slowly starts sounding like whoever you’re seeking understanding and acceptance from : your parents, your pastor, your friend, your cousin, your spouse….
It’s a miserable way to live.
It fractures you.
Let me help set you free :
you don’t need to be understood to be loved.
you don’t need to be understood to be accepted.
you don’t need to be understood to be happy.
you don’t need to be understood to have worth.
Pain is a teacher and in the fall outs of it, we learn that our worth can’t be tied up in the people around us understanding us. Pain changes us in ways that only pain can and those who haven’t experienced it simply can’t understand that. But they don’t need to understand to be kind. Compassion isn’t dependent on understanding and love shouldn’t be withheld until something “makes sense.” If someone’s love and compassion is contingent on their understanding, their love is counterfeit and you deserve better.
You don’t need to explain yourself over and over and over again to make the people around you feel more comfortable about what’s happened to you. That’s not your job. Your job is to heal and move forward in your life. The longer you spend trying to make other people understand, the longer you’ll delay becoming the version of you that is free to live with and after pain.
Like I said in my last post, you’ll probably leave some people behind as you move forward and that’s ok. Accepting what is is a part of the process. Letting go is part of healing.
We have to let go of people who withhold relationship and love when they don’t understand and we also have to let go of our need to be understood.
Losing people who can’t make room for our experiences is (unfortunately) a crucial part of the process of learning to not place our value on other people’s understanding of us. And the heartbreaking thing is that we can only get to this level of acceptance because something (or a million things) made us realize that no matter what we do, no matter how eloquently and logically we try to explain ourselves, some people just won’t budge. We get exhausted — and who wouldn’t??
But it gets so much better.
When your value is no longer staked on someone else’s perception and acceptance of you, you’ll start just … living your life. You’ll be free. You’ll walk confidently in your decisions and in your body and in your faith because you’re not thinking about what it looks like to other people anymore. You’re just living.
And that’s all we’re supposed to do.
We’re not called to suffer. We’re not called to be understood. We’re not called to make other people understand. We’re just supposed to live. And we can live with an abundance of joy and peace with or without the understanding of others.
You don’t need it. I promise. Just live.
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No matter what, I’m glad you’re here.
Your words come with impressive timing. ♥️
I needed this today. Thank you so much 🖤