Misunderstandings

[rva_jeremy]

I run into this a lot, sometimes even with the people closest to me.  I think it's an exercise in patience.  I mean, from a spiritual point of view it's absolutely clear what's going on here, right?  Of course we don't understand each other.  We don't understand crap.  It's amazing we can communicate with any fidelity at all via symbol systems like words.

That prompted me to think about the idea that words are perhaps not the communication themselves, but rather they are carriers for something more meaningful, energetic and subtle.  Maybe words are telepathy crutches, training wheels we use until we can accept pure mind-to-mind comms.  

If we think of "manifest" communication as only part of the communication--in the same sense that the "manifest" self is only one part of the self--then the act of communicating becomes something more than just concept transfer.  Figuring out how to understand another becomes less about interpreting the words (of course there's still that) and more about understanding what they're really trying/want to say to you, maybe energetically or with their facial expression, body language, context, etc.  Sometimes what makes good communicators so effective is that they pick up on what's not said.

Looked at this way, all communication is contingent, incommensurable and inexact.  So don't beat yourself up about it.  Use it as practice for exercising compassion and patience.  The person listening to you will almost always appreciate that you care about them enough to take the time.  If they are anxious, irritated, or something negative that is preventing clear communication, then maybe what you think the conversation is about isn't what it's actually about.  

In other words, and this is something I'm still learning and exploring, communication really happens between entire selves, not the small slices we put in front of others' in particular third density contexts.