The need for understanding
from principle to purpose
I journal a lot, as you know. I’ve always found solace in scrawling my way across a notebook page that is all but empty save the lines printed on it. Purging, processing, planning, praying—word by word—it helps me get closer to me and to my experience.
And I read a lot. Non-fiction psychology, philosophy, spirituality, wisdom literature, memoir—whatever I feel the pull to investigate that might open me up to new ways of seeing and being. In book form mostly, but there are plenty of great Substack contributors I enjoy reading too.
One such writer is Marianne Williamson who also happens to be a revered teacher and the bestselling author of A Return To Love—a book I have devoured and drawn from many times this past 11 years since I first discovered it.
The other day it was a paragraph from her Substack publication, Transform, that freed me from an outdated egoic belief:
Let me remember today that all of us are in need of love, both those who make it obvious and those who make it easy to forget.
Whether showing their love or hiding it, other people are, as I am, in need of understanding.
May I be someone who understands.
Boy did it land—not just into my email inbox but also into my heart.
I remember many years ago when I was deep in my Choice Theory study coming across the then famous Stephen Covey book titled The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, and one particular habit having a profound effect on the way I related to people.
It was Habit 5: Seek first to understand, then be understood.
Its essence is about listening empathically—listening with the intent to understand the person in communication with you and what they are experiencing—and by so doing, putting your desire to be seen and heard aside until they have finished sharing.
When we do this all manner of wanting to be right or justified or validated is minimised. We can really be there for the other, taking in their perspective, their experience, their position, their meaning without imposing ours.
We meet them where they are, seeing them, hearing them and feeling them without prejudice or judgment.
I’ve done my best to live by this principle for many years but lately my desire to ‘seek first’ has been relegated to second or third.
But when I read this portion of Marianne Williamson’s prayer1, I was moved beyond principle to love—love for my fellow travellers and love for what it is and means to be human.
We all are in need of love.
And we all are in need of understanding.
She then places the power in our hands to bring this prayer to earth with these words:
May I be someone who understands.
For me may I be someone who understands translates as:
May I not judge, may I not condemn, may I not dismiss, reject or defile another and may I remember we are all human and all in need of love and understanding.
This prayer2 brought me back to me and to the heart of my existence—to what I actually believe is at the heart of and purpose of every human’s existence—to love: ourselves, others, life, nature, the planet and love itself.
It also reminded me that this is why I read as much as I do.
And why I journal.
I want to understand me better so that ultimately I can extend my understanding to you and love you as I was intended for.
In February 2023 I wrote a Substack post titled It’s a process in which I talked about journaling as medicine. I don’t usually go back and read my posts but a few days ago I was searching for some words for the journaling project I’m working on.
I was delighted to discover that my devotion to the act of writing for myself and what I have named ‘Process Journaling’ was there for all to see—and that my desire to understand had also been openly declared:
Process Journaling helps me to make sense when I don’t understand. And when there is no sense to be made because sometimes stuff happens in life that is incomprehensible, journaling takes the hurt and holds it tenderly and patiently and kindly and then compassionately moves me into a place of acceptance and eventually peace and ultimately, forgiveness.
Journaling helps me understand. And when understanding escapes me, the act of writing my issue, my feelings, my pain on paper, is an act of love.
As the axiom “As above, so below, as within, so without, as the universe, so the soul” goes:
The understanding and love I give to myself when I journal, I also have to give to you.
And the understanding and love I give to you, I can also give to me.
I know the idea of praying can trigger people, so please know that what I write and share is without dogma. Think spiritual rather than religious. Prayer for me is the very simple act of reaching out to the benevolent Something that is much bigger than you or I—the Something that turns our Earth on a daily basis and breathes our bodies to life; the amazing and mysterious Something that also gave us the capacity to love. That Something that inspires awe and wonder and peace I call Love with a capital L. But in my experience it also answers to God, my Highest Self and Higher Power.
But don’t let names or identity put you off—even the concept of prayer can be translated as meditation, affirmation, intention. What matters most is this: if the quote I pulled for this post about love and understanding pierced your mind or heart then it has done its job. And if you choose to take up the simple but profound invitation to be someone who understands then you will change your experience of life and those you come into contact with.