Help with the neighbours
I've got some advice for relationships with neighbours
Actually you could use this for the 'neighbour' in your head.
We live in a subjective world and maybe the question is "what's mine and what's yours?'
A little more detail might help. One of the most important points about how we understand the world is the meaning that we place on, well virtually everything. As we grow and develop so we create inside ourselves a representation of the world, a model, a map. It is subjective, this means that it’s personal and is the collection of all our feelings, beliefs, desires, values and motivations. These qualities are built from our experiences and of course the most intimate experiences are those that come from within the family. This is where the map provides various ‘templates’ of how to behave in every situation and what is expected of us. The question is, do we update these templates?
To understand and be honest, about what bothers us in someone else’s behaviour, we have to become aware of our own subjective world, the map and its various templates. We need to know that we have a set of beliefs and values that give our lives meaning and, as importantly, that other people may well have different ones. You can see this is very young children in what is known as the Theory of Mind. Up to a certain age, around 2 years old, children have very little idea that other people have different ideas. The ‘terrible twos’ is often attributed to the idea that this is frustration where the toddler is coming up against people who certainly have different ideas and they have no strategies to deal with that.
To get beyond, or indeed to act in certainty, that others are ‘wrong’ or ‘right’ we have to have a clear idea of not only what are our values but also where they come from, what is the template exactly? Then we can decide how strongly we want to hold onto them. The next stage is to move out of this 'black and white' thinking to make a decision on how much it matters that a person is wrong or right or just different. Dare I say a few 'shades of grey' or even other colours?
Finally, we have to develop the ability to be empathic and realise that others have gone through a subjective journey themselves creating their own maps and templates to discover what is right and wrong for them. A question I often ask in confusing situations is “What has to be true for this person that they would think / behave like this?” This then gives me an insight into their representation of their world which I can test out. Choosing to challenge or to agree is then the next step……….
It's an article with Cass Green here on the psychologies web site: https://www.psychologies.co.uk/five-ways-be-good-n...
No comments yet.