When Others Don't Understand

When someone misunderstands your business, your mission isn’t to suddenly devote your time to making them understand.

When someone doesn’t hold the same regard towards your work like you think they should, you might think “they think my work is irrelevant“ or “they don’t understand what I’m doing”.

This can make you feel offended and unseen compelling you to defend yourself by over-explaining you and your business more clearly to them.

You do this in hopes that you can clear up the misunderstanding to prove your worth of being understood.

Deep in your bones you believe that if you can ‘just get them to understand’, they would be more supportive and ‘on your side’.

Because when they understand you, it makes you feel validated, valued, wanted, and seen!

I mean, when they understand the kind of impact you’re wanting to make, there’s no way they could be against that! Right?

Except underneath the hood, making them understand isn’t about helping them get clear on their perception of you and your work.

It’s about them acting a certain way that makes you feel good about yourself and what you do.

It’s a sneaky little thing your brain does to soothe an unmet need—the need to feel valued.

The thing is when you place this responsibility on others to fill the need for you, it not only disempowers and places you as a victim in the situation, but creates an uncomfortable situation for the other person as well.

It can also start to withdraw any trust that was built beforehand.

People in business are always scared of “coming off salesy” and this is part of where that comes from—not being able to hold the discomfort of being misunderstood which steers you into convincing mode.

You will get tired of me saying this, but if you experience this, nothing has gone wrong.

I want to help you integrate that thought into your brain—nothing has gone wrong.

If what you’re reading is bringing up sensations in your body that feel ashamed, exposed, or disappointed for situations you are now realizing you own part responsibility in creating, know that it's normal.

Because anytime you enter a new level of awareness around your behaviors and/or when you realize you’ve been doing something that doesn’t serve you or others, it’s incredibly natural to feel terrible about yourself.

Not because you are terrible, but because your heart wants to do so much good it’s shocking to witness yourself contributing to the complete opposite!

It’s uncomfortable because your ego lives like it’s infallible.

It’s very protective of anything that could make it experience otherwise.

And, if you’ve never been taught how to manage that discomfort, the intensity that comes when it’s confronted can cause you to behave in ways that are mission-disoriented and spill over into many areas whenever it’s triggered.

The way to combat this is to:

1. Become familiar with the situations where you find yourself over-explaining.

   • Where do you find yourself starting to convince the other person of your worth?

   • What problem do you think your over-explaining will help solve?

   • What does over-explaining help you avoid feeling and doing?

2. Deepen your own understanding around what you do.

   • If you were to explain how your business helps people to a 5th grader, how would you succinctly describe it?

   • What do you need to do to develop a more belief in your work that would ground you so deeply you wouldn’t be worried about explaining about what you do than you already have?

3. Satifsy your own needs.

   • Be willing to practice trusting discomfort and your ability to hold it.

   • What urges do you get when you crave validation?

   • How can you interrup and expand the cycle when it happens?

   • How can you create safety for yourself in the middle of an uncomfortable sitaution?

You aren’t expecetd to know this.

So, don’t beat yourself up over something you had no way of knowing ahead of time.

Instead, lean into the gift of awareness and the opportunity to consciously make your own decisions.

One step at a time with imperfectly executed practice.

Because, what a true blessing to even be awake to all of this and knowing it’s possible.

Never let your brain cease at finding the good.

Practice and implement with purpose.

It matters more than you’ll ever know.

Boldly,

Lynne xo