Hi everyone, welcome back! Last weekend was an amazing weekend for me because I got a chance to present “How to bring mindfulness into your life” at a local library. Some of you may have already seen this video but in case you didn’t get a chance to watch it, here is a link: https://youtu.be/hEmA7ZzC4FsI had so much fun presenting on this topic!
Back to this blog now. A couple of weeks back I talked about how our expectations of others affect the way we think and therefore we end up living our lives based on that kind of thinking. And in that I also pointed out that we not only have expectations from others but also assume things in the process. So, here is my belief for this week.
Belief: Because this person doesn’t react/respond to me the way I expect them to, they must not like me or not like what I have to say or what I did or didn’t do etc. etc.
So many of us, as we go about our daily lives, make assumptions all the time and sometimes we take ‘assuming’ so very far that it starts to affect our relationships not only with people around us but also with our own selves. We may make these assumptions because we may not be confident in ourselves or we may not trust ourselves completely or sometimes we may even doubt ourselves. Additionally, we may not completely trust the Universe or God and therefore when we assume anything, what we are really doing is, we are imagining stories about the situation or person or both. And in imagining these stories what we are really doing is creating thoughts from our mind’s limited perspective – a perspective of fear.
So let’s look at a few examples to better understand ‘assumptions’. Let’s imagine you have a friend or a family member that you are very close to and you share not only your happiness with them, you also include them in your sorrows and challenges. Now let’s imagine that you are facing a challenging situation in your life at this time. This challenging situation may be personal or professional or health related but because you are facing this challenging situation, you so very much want your close friend or family member to be even closer to you now so that you can lean on them for support. However, you don’t tell them that this is what you need from them because you ‘assume’ that they should understand this themselves and give you that support without you having to ask for it! And because you don’t ask them for support, they don’t even realize that you need them this way in your life at this time and so they don’t give you that support that you so very much want. So, in the process you once again ‘assume’ that this close friend or family member is not interested in supporting you through your challenges. And because you feel the way you feel, instead to communicating with them to figure out if something may be going on with them which could be preventing them from being there for you at your time of need or on the other hand they may even think that since you are going through this challenge, you don’t want other people to interfere or they may not even know how to interfere and help you and give you the support! So as a result, you start to distance yourself from them and think that they are not your good friend any more or they don’t care about you anymore. And thus begins the ending of a beautiful relationship just because you believed everything your mind told you! And if you are a highly sensitive person who is in tune with other people’s pain and feelings, you are more likely to be that person who makes these assumptions because unlike other people you would always or have always (just because of the fact that you are highly sensitive) given your support and help to friends and family members even if they don’t ask for it!! And you expect the same in return. However, what you don’t realize is (and what I recently started to realize because I am that highly sensitive person) that not everyone is highly sensitive and therefore don’t feel your feelings the way you feel theirs and that’s why don’t even realize that you need them to be there for you!
Let’s take another example which again is something that happens way too often in our daily lives. So let’s imagine that you are one of those many people (most of us I guess :)) who wants to hear from other people that you are either very beautiful or very intelligent or very accomplished etc. (things that society places high value on). But as you go through life, if you don’t come across many people who actually say that to you and validate you the way you feel about yourself and your own life, you ‘assume’ that you and your life are not good enough! Therefore, you begin to doubt yourself and your abilities, your beauty and your accomplishments. And because you begin to doubt yourself, it affects your self-esteem and therefore your relationship with yourself. You now live in a mindset of fear of not being good enough which initiates your non-ending journey to become better, achieve more, and improve your physical self, buy more stuff etc. etc.
So now that you understand how ‘assumptions’ can affect the way you think and can also have a huge impact on your relationships, is there something that you can do to shift your perspective? Yes you can, however, like I pointed out in my previous posts, it’s ALWAYS best to start when you are very young. But if you are reading this blog, chances are you are already an adult. But that should not stop you from paying attention so that every time you make an ‘assumption’ you can catch yourself and choose to continue to believe your thoughts or allow yourself to shift your perspective. In addition, if you are raising kids, you can also try to include it in your parenting style. Every time your kid asks for validation from you or someone else, ask them instead what do they think of themselves? Do they think they are beautiful? Do they think they are intelligent? Do they think they like their grades? Do they think they are lovable? If they answer ‘yes’, there is nothing more you need to do :). However, if they answer ‘no’, try to get them to explain why is it they think that way and build up their confidence, their self-esteem from there on. Validate them that way 🙂
And as always, feel free to leave a comment, if you feel like leaving one. And until next Friday, live life 🙂
