When I assume...
An assumption is something that you accept to be true, without questioning it or having proof.
We often assume that we know what the other person means, when we filter what we hear and distort it to something that is true to us, and that fits with our understanding and beliefs.
I was once taught this: An assumption makes an A** out of U and ME, and it makes total sense to me! I think I will probably remember this for the rest of my life!
Am I really right in assuming that…?
The one thing that destroys communication/contact/connection is the assumption that my guess of what the other person means, is correct.
You cannot assume that the picture the other person paints is the same as the picture in your own head – you are most likely to get it wrong unless you put in effort to find out what the other person means.
The meaning of words
The meaning we attach to words is also quite different. When I say ‘blue’, what you think of as blue in your head is likely to be different from what I think of as blue. What you consider big, I might consider small, and so on.
And it might not be such a big issue if it is about a different shade of blue... But there are definitely situations when giving different meaning to words can become a problem, especially when we don’t accept that the other person is okay in having a different meaning or opinion from us.
Check, check, re-check, double check…
It is important to have an awareness of our own personal frame of reference. The way we hear things, what we conclude from what we hear, and our assumptions are all based within our ego states and our script. We filter out the experiences that don’t compute – we discount them. So when someone says something that we don’t compute, we might not even hear it and it gets discounted (bounced), or distorted into something that makes more sense to us and that fits within our set of definitions about ourselves and the world.
What was said? Is what you ‘heard’ matching what was said? It’s better to check with the other person than to think you understood, and respond from a place of not understanding...
I’d like to encourage you to listen... really listen.
And check. Better be safe than sorry.