I can understand others when I learn to understand myself. The first step has to come from within.

After whole day of work, he came very stressed. He could not achieve his this month targets and his boss had given him warning. He could not share this with his wife too as he felt she would think of him as a failure. She was already tired after whole day of running around but less stressed out. While having dinner his 5 years old son was making a little mess. His whole stress came out on his small child in the form of anger. This angered wife too and she started screaming that do not try to take out your office stress here. Then the fight started and it went uptill morning. He broke down and said that what if I would not have a job tomorrow? How would I take care of all of you? It was like suddenly cold water was splashed on her face. She sat down stunned and said what do you mean. He told her everything and then she asked why you did not tell me earlier? He said that I have never felt that you would understand me. The fight was about to start again but something stopped her. She just said one thing that she would work on it and they are together into it. That day onwards, she always made an effort. When he was angry, she would ask herself why is he angry? When do I get angry? When something is wrong and I am in pain. If I am in pain, I need help. It means my husband needs help. The situation changed from how dare you to how can I help! It improved the environment at home, their relationship and eventually when he was less stressed out it improved his performance too.

This is not a very uncommon situation. The greatest gift of love can be gift of understanding. Once we understand, we can be there for each other to support. But to understand others, we need to understand ourselves. We need to make an effort. Instead of thinking from ego perspective, we need to think from the point of love. That if he is acting like this, he needs help, how can I help? If I cannot help, may be I can simply hear out. It does not take much to be there just a realization of the fact that we need to be there. Often we live a very unaware life. When we start becoming aware of own presence, own thoughts, own feelings, when we question them, if I am feeling like this why am I feeling like this and when we learn to accept that I can feel bad about this, then we give a way to honestly accept others emotions too. So understand yourself, to understand your loved ones. Understand your feelings to understand their feelings. Be yourself, let others be who they are. But for that know yourself and you will know who others are.

By Sheetal Jain