Responses & Reactions

When someone responds in an unexpected way, the feelings we feel come from our expectations, not from the other person. The feelings we feel come from them not behaving as we thought they would and when we see that, there can be more compassion, more calmness, and more clarity as to what to do next. Which will probably be something other than trying to persuade the other person what your intentions were. Imagine if you could see this in all your relationships?

Transcript

Hello and welcome to the Calmcast,

A time to feel calm and think clearly.

I'm Claire Downham,

The Queen of Calm,

A Transformational Life Coach.

I was a burnt out headteacher who finally made the journey to calm after years of trying,

And I want to prevent you from having to do the same.

The Calmcast is a series of short explorations gently guiding you back to your natural state,

Which is calm and clarity.

Just listen like you would listen to music with an open mind and curiosity.

There's nothing else to do.

Now let's relax into today's episode.

So today's exploration is around responses and reactions,

But not our own for a change.

I quite often talk about how we respond and react to things,

But today is about other people.

So in the last few days,

I've had a couple of things happen where I've done something or messaged something that has been interpreted in a completely different way to how it was intended.

So the first thing was me doing a task that I thought in my heart of hearts was taking something off somebody else's plate that they seem to be quite stressed about.

And when I sent them a message to say,

Yay,

Yay,

I've done this thing.

I hope this takes the weight off,

Blah,

Blah,

Blah.

It was received in a completely different way.

The other person was upset with me and angry with me,

Wanted it to be just completely different to what I'd done.

And it was at first,

I was very caught up and felt the need to try and persuade this other person of my intentions.

But after they replied again with still the same kind of framing,

I just let it go.

And the second one was somebody sent me a message on a particular topic.

I kind of agreed with my little quirky message back and they thought I was disagreeing with them.

And when I read back,

I was like,

I can't see how that could be seen to be a disagreement,

But it has been seen that way.

And there is just so much information in those two interactions,

Like not information about me and them and how they are and how I,

And why are they,

Why are they misreading me and I should persuade them my point of view,

Blah,

Blah,

Blah.

Not that,

But this amazing,

It's pointing in the direction that I always point in.

And that is that we are perceiving the world through our own unique collection of conditioned thinking,

Made up stuff that wasn't made up by us through our identity,

Through this thing that we see that we think needs protecting that all of that is how we connect with the world on a moment by moment basis and that is inescapable,

But it's just as inescapable as gravity.

You know,

The reason my feet are firmly on the ground right now and everything on my desk is staying down on the desk is because gravity is working all the time and how people work,

How their experience is created through thought in the moment is happening all the time.

So when we put something out into the world with such good intentions,

I think that it is laced with expectation.

You know,

We're sitting there,

Aren't they,

With our little halo on our head going,

Oh,

Aren't I,

Aren't I a good girl.

I've done something nice.

Oh,

Good boy.

I've done something nice in the world that that should be received in a certain way.

And I know,

I know I would,

Should if I,

That.

And when I think about the first incident where I did something,

I assumed and I expected,

And those two ways of coming out of the world are not particularly helpful.

So I can see that now afterwards,

Of course,

But I assume the other person wanted this thing taking off their plate.

And I expected that they would respond with gratitude and be thankful for what I did and think I was a good girl and all of these things.

And,

And of course that laced how I saw their response because it was,

It was unexpected.

Their response was unexpected.

It,

It,

It,

I guess I was,

I ended up being quite rubbed up the wrong way by their response because I thought I'd done something nice.

I thought I was going to get,

You know,

A sticker and a certificate for doing something nice and some gratitude and I didn't get that.

So what is there to see in this is that our way of seeing the world is never going to align a hundred percent with somebody else's.

I think perhaps if you live with somebody and you,

You,

Um,

Get them quite well,

Then maybe this happens a bit less,

But I still,

It still happens.

It happens.

I'll tell you another funny one.

It happens between Bruce and I,

If I'm struggling with something,

He will,

Without saying anything,

He'll just take it off me.

If it's physical,

I've got a frozen shoulder at the moment.

So I think he's just got used to helping me.

But sometimes I'm okay.

I'm,

I'm working out myself.

And then I,

I view that as snatching because I'm like,

What are you doing?

I didn't ask you to say that.

So it's all the time we're forgetting that we don't see the world how everybody else sees it and they don't see what we see.

But these kind of incidents rather than being a place for getting upset can be just a place for being interested.

You know,

Why,

Why is it,

Why is it that,

That what I did did not pan out?

Well,

For just one reason.

And the reason is because the other person has different thinking to me.

And what is useful to know as well is that when you're feeling uncomfortable as a result of one of these interactions,

You're not feeling the other person's behavior.

It's not them making you feel that.

You're feeling your expectation.

You're feeling your assumptions.

You're feeling the fact that that did not pan out how you wanted it to pan out.

And that can just be helpful because suddenly then the focus isn't on them and it's not really on you.

It's just on knowing,

Oh,

This is how it works.

I'm feeling my perspective on this.

I'm feeling thought in the moment.

And that means there's a lot less thinking.

Like initially when,

Especially the first thing happened,

Initially when that happened,

I had a lot of thinking.

I did some ranting folks I have to admit.

And,

But as the days have passed on,

I've seen it more and more that this is just a completely different perspective on life.

And I'm feeling the fact that I think this other person's perspective should be different.

That's all I'm feeling.

And from that space,

When you're not,

I don't need to know the details or I don't even need to consider the details of why this other person is responding the way they have.

I don't need to know any of that.

I just need to know the one facts that the one set of facts and that is that they see the world how they see it and what they,

How they've responded is the response that made sense to them in the moment.

If you think about the layers,

There are,

You know,

There's my response because of how I feel there's their response because of their,

How they feel.

And in any moment we feel a feeling and our response is,

Or reaction is based on where we think that feeling is going from.

For a while I thought that my feeling was coming from the reaction of this other person to the nice thing I did.

And now I know it isn't.

And the result of that transition from thinking it's them to knowing it's thought in the moment,

Not that it's me,

But it's just where I was in that moment.

There's just a lot less to think about.

And then there's space.

And as I keep saying,

Space is,

Space is where it's at.

Space is,

There's so much available in that space.

But when we're confused about where our feelings are coming from and we think there's something to do to fix all the people or their reactions or how they think about us,

There's a lot of noise and that space isn't so available.

And I've noticed as I've transitioned from the place I was believing that my feelings were coming from the other person and their reaction to realizing that really my feelings were coming from my expectation and my idea of what the response should have been to how I behaved.

As that transition has happened,

I've just felt calmer and calmer.

And now I'm sitting with the truth and what's occurring to do is a lot less and a lot simpler than it was before.

Just worth getting curious about this when you notice it playing out in your life.

Thank you so much for listening.

There's nothing to do now but bring some awareness to how this is working out in your life.

Listen regularly to experience longer and longer periods of calm.

This has been The Calm Cast with Clare Downer,

Queen of Car.

Take care and keep listening.

Reviews

Excellent talk! It helped bring guidance to my perspective on where my feeling are coming from. Thank you! 🙏🏻

This was amazing! Felt like you were telling my story! I recently had a similar interaction with a friend that I'd been helping. She didn't like my help and made it clear and I was so offended. Thank you for giving me a different perspective!