I have found a central cause for many of my conflicts and the sources of many of the lies that I heartily ingest in the heat of a struggle. I use my superpower of mindreading.
What is Mindreading?
In my protective shell in which I often lived, my interactions with others were often tactical battles of trying to outwit or outpace their attempts to ridicule, tease, bully, or humiliate me. Or so I thought. You see, I had discerned their thoughts and motives through my ability to read their minds accurately. I would judge the context of the situation, the look on their faces, the history of past encounters, the mood of the conversation, the words being said, and I would look into their minds and would determine what they were thinking and how they were going to treat me. At first, this superpower was just an educated guess based on survival skills and a high emotional intelligence that persecuted people have to develop. But after practicing it constantly, I began to rely on it more and more as it seemed to prevent painful situations for me as I accurately deduced intention and motive and thus avoided painful confrontations.
The Danger of Mindreading
There isn’t anything wrong with using tone and body language cues as I seek to understand someone’s perspective and words. But, it is just a guess. But my guess is completely clouded by my own hurt, brokenness, self-preservation, and selfishness. I will more likely attribute hurtful intent in a person’s words than was actually present. I will actually trust my own mindreading ability and disregard the speaker’s own words even when they tell me their real feelings and motives. I will doubt them and believe my own mindreading. I have set myself up as judge of the thoughts and intentions of men’s hearts. I am not qualified. Only One is.
Is There a Cure?
It is not easy to stop the thought and emotional patterns that have developed around this mindreading skill. It usually resulted in escalating anger as I keep insisting that they actually meant something other than what they said, only to be denied by the speaker, and then my grasping at reasons why I am right and they are wrong. The basis for this angry argument is my absolute trust in my own mindreading. I did not even stop and ask the person what they meant. This is based on arrogance and mistrust. Even of those I love the most. The cure is simply reversing that and practicing it over and over until a new pattern of behavior and emotion becomes the new default. I reverse the process by stating some truths to myself:
- I will remember that I may perceive intent or motive, but it is only a guess
- I must give the speaker the respect of owning and describing their own intent and motive
- I may share my thought, but must ask if that is what they meant
- If they state their intent or motive is different, I will honor and accept that
It would be easier if I could just reach in and take the batteries out of my mind reader, but I still need my brain, so I have to retrain that part of my mind instead.
It has been difficult to practice this each time. But then I realize that just as I struggle to make my outer emotions match the intention of my inner will, others may have that same struggle. They may have a look of frustration or sharp tone in their voice as they wrestle with themselves to match what they are choosing internally. I likely picked up that look or tone, but I must let them tell me what their real attitude and intention is.
So, if my frazzled and frustrated wife, who is signaling body language, tone of voice, and facial cues that she is upset, says, after a deep sigh, “No, I’m not upset”, I will suppress my urge to scream “YOU’RE LYING!”, I will respect her inner reality fighting with her outer expression, and I will accept and act upon that as a truth. Just as I hope she will allow me to do the same as I struggle to make inner intention into outer reality.