My Mind's Slow Simmer

I took part in a training session yesterday about communication.  At the beginning of the session each of us was asked whether we make decisions primarily with our minds or with our hearts. 

Most people said that it usually depended on the situation - sometimes mind and sometimes heart.  Fair enough I guess but I don't work that way. 

I learned a long time ago how I make decisions and my little method has served me well.  The process may take seconds (should I buy that new running jacket?) or may take months (should I stay or should I go?) but it's almost always the same. 

My heart (or my gut if you prefer) informs me immediately what my final decision will be and then my mind simmers away working out all the logical reasons why that decision is in fact the best decision. I trust how my mind and heart work together and let them do a lot of the background work on their own. In fact, this system works so well that it often happens without much active work on my part.  Things just simmer away (I supposed I should say subconsciously) until I receive confirmation that the final decision has been made and both heart and mind are in agreement.

I thought a lot about it yesterday and I really couldn't come up with a good example of a time when my gut told me one thing that I talked myself out of it later.  At least not a significant decision - I do change my mind about menu items, whether or not I want tea or if I want red or white wine with my dinner. 

Pretty much all day every day, my mind simmers away in the background even while it is actively working away on something else.  Decision are made, plans are developed and I often don't even realize what's happened until someone asks me what I want to do about something and I start spouting out detailed plans. I can be typing policies for work while it debates with itself whether or not I will run after work, how far and how hard I will run and what I will wear.  At the end of the afternoon, the policy is written and all running decisions were made. 

Was I even there?

Is that normal?

Does everyone's mind work that way?

I doubt it.

My point in all of this is that we get used to how we do things and how we see the world.  My methods work for me and I don't give much thought about what everyone else does until we're asked to share in a group. I listen to everyone else explain how they do something and I nod politely while my mind thinks "really?!? That's odd." 

I learned the hard way that logic for one is not logic for all.  In high school I was asked to tutor someone in math. I liked math and was doing fine so it seemed like a fun, easy thing to do.  Share my wicked knowledge of numbers. 

It was such a bomb that we did not survive two sessions.  I showed the person how I worked through a problem and the look I got in return was priceless.  Not because he could not comprehend the math, just because he really thought I was nuts.  He couldn't solve the problem on his own and I couldn't find another way to explain how to solve it so we were doomed from the start.

Here's a fun activity to try - ask someone to do something (calculate the tip, solve a Sudoku or follow a new recipe) and then ask them the process they took to do it.  It's the process, not the final answer, that I find fascinating.  Because man oh man, there is more than one way to skin a cat.  And learning how other people do it gives great insight into how they think. 

It's not always easy to understand how each person sees the world.  But just keeping in mind that it's probably not how we see it can be helpful - when making decisions together, planning a trip or figuring out a math problem.

Humans.

Crazy bunch of nutters.

Can You Read My Mind?

So apparently I'm not a mind reader.

Despite the fact that I like to think I'm pretty good at it.

Here's what I do. I look at all the facts and the signs.  I add to that the facial expressions and the body language.  I subtract past experience and personal knowledge and I come up with a very nicely packaged interpretation of what is going on.

Not surprisingly, I'm often way off base.

The problem is that, the closer I get to someone, the more assumptions I make.  With someone I don't know very well, I'm quite comfortable asking what they're thinking, asking for clarification and asking for confirmation.  As I get to know a person more, I begin to take that knowledge for granted and just assume that I know what they're feeling and thinking.

That can be very dangerous.

What goes hand in hand with that, of course, is that the closer I get to someone, the more I assume that they can read my mind too.  I assume that my subtle hints are clear instructions and my gentle looks are an obvious roadmap to what I'm thinking.

Again, very dangerous.

Sometimes it's funny.  Misunderstandings can breed hilarity.  They can also breed frustration.  It depends on the end result and everyone's mood that day.

I guess what I need to do is to learn to be ok with not knowing.  To be ok with asking someone what they meant by their words or their actions.  Because being a good listener, daughter, friend and partner is not about being able to read minds.  It's about showing how much you care by taking the time to really discover what that person is thinking and feeling.

The Detailed Answer

I work with people who have disabilities.  All sorts of disabilities.  Some people are in a wheelchair and some use crutches or walkers.  Others have difficulty communicating.  Many have some sort of mental health concern and all have a developmental disability. 

I spend a lot of time trying to put myself in other people's shoes.  Trying to imagine what it would be like to try to learn how to cook if I couldn't read, couldn't follow directions and had difficulty problem solving. Trying to imagine how scary it might be to learn how to take the city bus if I had mobility issues or difficulty with directions or depth perception.  Trying to imagine how much courage it would take to face the world every day if I looked different, talked differently or processed things differently than other people. 

I try hard to imagine.  But I know I can't possibly come close to understanding. 

Just like no one can come close to understanding what it's like to live with diabetes. Because what it looks like on the outside is only a shadow of what's going on in the inside. People see the blood testing, the insulin pump, the packs of fast acting carbs that I carry.  They don't see the constant processing of information and weighing of variables that must happen to stay, as much as possible, in the 'safe' zone.

Ever had someone ask you what you were thinking?  I do that a lot to people.  It does not always go over well (trust me!) but it does provide some interesting insight into their thought processes.  Especially if your next question is "how did you start thinking about that?". 

Ask someone with a disability how they prepare a meal.  Ask them how they know when to ring the bell to get off the bus or how they tell the difference between a $10 and a $20 bill.  Ask someone in a wheelchair what they have to think about if they want to go out for coffee with a friend. Chances are the way that they look at the world and the things that they have to think about will surprise you.

Ask someone with diabetes why their blood sugar was high or low or ask them how they are going to calculate their next insulin bolus.  Specify that you want the detailed answer not the simple one.  And then pull up a chair and prepare to learn a lot about food, fibre, monthly cycles, types and length of exercise, insulin stacking, illness, intuition and witchcraft. 

Ask someone you love why they love you.  Ask for the detailed answer.  It might just make your day.

Just...listen

Whew!  I have finished my part in this week's marathon of staff training.  I spent seven hours yesterday talking to staff about rights, respect and responsibility.  Specifically, how to teach these rather abstract concepts to adults with a developmental disability and how to recognize when we, as an agency, may be restricting someone's rights. Pretty intense stuff.  Today, we talked for 4 hours about person-centred thinking and the best way to get to know someone so that we can help them create a vision for their own future.  Again, not easy.

As per usual, in an effort to teach people things, I end up learning just as much.

Over the past two days, I learned how very important it is to listen.  Not talk, just listen.

We work hard and our job can be physically and emotionally draining.  People are full of ideas and frustrations but, in the business of our days, there are not many opportunities to talk about them.  So, after a few minutes of me talking, I tried another tactic.  I asked: how's it going?  What's working?  What's not working?  How can we make things better?

I sat at the front and took pages of notes as people vented, sympathized and tossed out ideas.  It completed messed up my presentation and we didn't get through half of my slides but, at the end, most people came up to me to tell me how great the morning was.

I hardly did anything.

Maybe that's the point.

One of the most interesting moments of the day, in my mind at least, was when we were talking about the importance of really getting to know someone so that we can help them do the things that are most meaningful for them. Staff were talking about how hard it is to really get to know someone using our services.  Some staff work with people in their homes.  Others work with them in the community.  Others teach classes that people attend once per week.  How can we possibly figure out what makes someone tick when we only see parts of them?

I thought for a second and then answered: everyone in the room knows me.  Some know my personal life, some have helped me on photoshoots, some run with me, some work directly with me, some have met my partner, some talk to me about Dexter and others borrow my books.  Nobody in that room really knows me.  But put everyone together and they would be able to draw a pretty accurate picture of who I am.

We can learn a lot about people if we just listen.  

I learned a lot today.

Hopefully the people I was supposed to be teaching did too.