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saidso
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Member Since: Oct 2018
Location: Europe & UK
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Question Feb 25, 2019 at 07:29 AM
 
The discussions about being supportive on this forum have led me to reflect that perceptions are dependent on our emotional state at any given moment and on learned behaviours. Context is important.

For example, a teacher told me yesterday that something I made in a beginner's class was a "complete" mess - and I found that honesty both charming and funny. It was said with a smile and within a general context of respectfulness. None of the hate or impatience that I fear from teachers.

I think there is a big range of what might be called supportive by some and unsupportive by others - there is even a big range of perceptions in therapeutic situations around what is interpreted as supportive of healing and growth.

There have been intimate moments in my life when if someone else breathed too noisily I would fly into a panic... Within an intimate relationship I would expect another person to behave cautiously.

There have also been years of my life when I had to deal with others who grew up in even rougher situations than I did, or who grew up protected but felt entitled to spit on other people. In the street, in housing situations and at work you have to deal with people who hate you just because...

Somewhere in between those two extremes lies PC forums... and to cultivate an atmosphere of trust methinks we have to evaluate what we write to each other - but within the context of respecting that we come from very different life experiences.

For me to change my behaviour, another person has to meet me with willingness to change their perceptions..... For you to change your behaviour, I have to meet you with a willingness to change my perceptions?..... There needs to be some curiosity about the world outside my particular mind-set +++++ the willingness to take time and step back from initial emotional reactions?

I've never found time to think deeply about perceptions in my life before. "It could be that I perceive you as unnessarily sensitive"... "it could be that you perceive me as unnecessarily brutal"... "it could be that we both feel utterly Justified"... OR "it could be that we are curious about our differences"?

What is a perception? I guess that's the basis of many behavioural therapy processes. That there are habitual perceptions triggered deep within the brain beyond our consciousness?

Do we need a range of perceptions and experiences on this forum?

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Thanks for this!
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