From Where We Were Standing: Understanding Different Perspectives

Blog 3 of 4: Self-Honor Blog Series

“Seeking to understand takes consideration; seeking to be understood takes courage.” — Stephen R. Covey

To understand all is to forgive all.

I don't think it's quite that simple. We can understand why someone did what they did and still be hurt by it. We can accept that something happened without liking it, condoning it or wishing it had turned out differently. Understanding doesn't erase our side of the story; it gives us another side to consider. And sometimes that changes what we thought we knew. But first, we have to be willing to hear something that may not match the story we've already been telling.

A mentor once told me that people may not like an answer, but if they understand it, they're more willing to accept it. The difficult part is getting to that understanding. We have to stop filling in the missing pieces ourselves long enough to hear what someone else knows. We have to listen without spending the entire conversation preparing our defence, and then be willing to tell our side just as honestly. Somewhere between those two stories, we may discover that we can accept what happened, even if we don't like it, and move forward without needing to keep revisiting it.

When Different Perspectives Meet

Two people can walk away from the same experience with completely different ideas about what happened. One remembers the words that were said, while the other remembers the tone. What one experienced as support may have felt like pressure to the other. A decision one believed they made together may be remembered by the other as something they reluctantly agreed to. Neither person needs to be lying for those differences to exist. They were both there, but different perspectives can leave each of them with a different understanding of what happened.

This is territory psychotherapist Esther Perel has spent decades exploring in her work with couples and relationships. Much of her work looks at the stories people create around shared experiences and what happens when those stories don't match. That's what makes her work useful here. Two people can be describing the same relationship or event without either account containing the whole story. The challenge isn't simply deciding whose version is correct; it's making room for another experience without feeling as though doing so takes something away from our own.

That is where a difference in experience can turn into a standoff. If we need the other person to agree with our version before we can acknowledge theirs, understanding becomes almost impossible. Instead of listening for what we don't know, we start listening for what they've got wrong. And chances are, they're doing exactly the same thing. The conversation becomes less about discovering what we couldn't see ourselves and more about proving whose view deserves to become the official one.

Self-Honor asks us to notice something important here. Making room for another person's truth doesn't require us to hand over our own. Neither truth has to disappear simply because another one has entered the conversation. But before we can know what those truths mean together, we first have to be willing to hear that another one exists.

Seek First to Understand

Recognizing that someone else may have experienced the situation differently is one thing. Staying quiet long enough to understand what that experience was is much harder. The moment we hear something that doesn't fit with what we remember, we can start forming our response in our mind before the other person has finished speaking. We want to explain what we meant, correct what they misunderstood or defend the part of the story we believe they're getting wrong. If we're already deciding what we're going to say next, how much of what they're saying are we actually hearing?

In Why We Rehearse Conversations: The Reality We Cannot Edit, we looked at the conversations we have before the real one ever takes place. We replay what happened, rehearse what we might say next and fill in the pieces we don't know with the information we have. But the rehearsing doesn't necessarily stop when the conversation finally begins. The other person can be sitting right in front of us, finally giving us information we didn't have, while we're still listening to the conversation we've already created in our mind.

Stephen R. Covey understood that distinction well enough to make it one of the seven habits in his bestselling book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. Habit 5 is “Seek First to Understand, Then to Be Understood.” He wasn't talking about politely waiting for our turn to speak. Covey described the way we often listen through our own experiences, preparing to evaluate, question, advise or respond instead of trying to understand what the other person means. His alternative was empathic listening: listening with the intention of understanding another person's frame of reference before asking them to understand ours.

And that requires us to suspend judgment long enough to listen. Suspending judgment doesn't mean giving up our judgment or deciding the other person is right. It means allowing their whole thought to arrive before we decide what we're going to do with it. We may still disagree when they're finished. We may still need to correct something, explain ourselves or say that their version isn't how we experienced it. But now we're responding to what they actually said rather than what we assumed they were going to say.

Persephone is back in the garden now, looking at a place she remembers as beautiful and alive and finding it barren. She can see what happened to the garden and wonder how her mother could have allowed it to become this way. And while Demeter begins telling her what happened while she was gone, Persephone could still be staring at what is right in front of her. But that doesn't explain this. How did you let this happen? The garden is real and its condition matters, but staring at it cannot tell Persephone what happened to her mother while she was gone.

That's the practice Covey was pointing toward. Listening asks us to loosen our grip on what we already know long enough to hear what we don't. Not dismiss what happened. Not excuse it. Not decide that the other person's explanation changes everything. Just stop answering for them long enough to hear what they are actually trying to tell us. Nobody gets this right every time, but each time we notice that we've disappeared into our own response, we have another opportunity to come back to the conversation.

Understanding Isn't Acceptance

Hearing another person's truth doesn't mean we immediately understand it. Sometimes it gives us information we didn't have before: what they were experiencing, why they made a particular choice or what they meant when they said something we interpreted differently. Understanding begins when we allow that information to become part of what we know about the situation. It doesn't change what happened or how it affected us. It gives us a fuller picture than the one we could see from our side alone.

Acceptance takes us one step further. We can understand someone's explanation and still resist the reality of it because it doesn't fit with what we experienced ourselves. Acceptance asks us to stop fighting with the fact that this was their experience, even when we don't like it, agree with it or wish it had been different. It isn't saying, What you did was okay, and it doesn't require forgiveness, reconciliation or a particular outcome. It's being able to say, I believe this is how you experienced it, without needing their truth to become ours—or ours to become theirs.

That can be harder than it sounds because new information rarely arrives on an empty page. It lands on top of everything we already felt, believed and lived through ourselves. Sometimes hearing the other side changes the meaning we attached to what happened. Something we took personally looks different once we understand what was happening for them. The hurt may still be there, but we no longer have to rely entirely on the explanation we created when theirs was missing.

Other times, we can understand every word and still feel exactly as we did before. We can listen carefully, accept that another person's experience was real and still think, I understand why you did what you did. And it still hurt me. Understanding gave their truth a genuine opportunity to influence how we see the situation; it never promised that it would change our own. Self-Honor is allowing ourselves to discover which is true without deciding the answer before we've listened.

Then, to Be Understood

There is a second half to Covey's fifth habit that can be easy to overlook: “Then to Be Understood.” Seeking first to understand doesn't mean the conversation ends once we understand the other person. Covey's principle asks us to listen deeply enough to see the situation from someone else's frame of reference, but it doesn't ask us to remain there. There is still another experience in the room.

Ours.

For some of us, this may be the harder part. Once someone's explanation makes sense, it can become tempting to start adjusting our own truth around theirs. They were going through a lot. They didn't mean to hurt me. I don't want to make this worse. Understanding their truth should give us more information about the situation; it shouldn't require us to disappear from it. We can understand why someone did something, have compassion for what they were living through and still tell them honestly how it affected us.

Being understood requires something vulnerable from us too. We have to say what was true for us without knowing how the other person will receive it. They may disagree, become defensive or understand completely and still be unable to give us what we want. Speaking honestly doesn't guarantee the outcome. If keeping the peace has protected us before, saying This hurt me, This matters to me or I can't continue this way can feel far more uncomfortable than understanding someone else's reasons.

This is why the order of Covey's habit matters. Seek first to understand, then to be understood. Listening first gives us the opportunity to respond to the person who is actually in front of us rather than the version we've created ourselves. Then we give them the same opportunity. We tell them what happened from our side, not to defeat their version, but because they cannot understand what they were never given the chance to hear.

When There Are No More Answers

There may not always be another conversation. Someone may not be willing to tell us their side, and we may never understand everything that happened from where they were standing. We can spend years filling that silence ourselves, replaying what happened, imagining their reasons and trying to solve a story we were never given. Or we can be honest about what we know, accept that there are pieces we may never know and stop asking ourselves to provide the missing answers.

When the conversation is possible, we can do something different. We can quiet the one happening inside our head long enough to listen. We can leave judgment off the table while the other person tells us what happened from where they were standing, allow that information to influence what we thought we knew and then give ourselves the same opportunity to be heard. From there, whatever decision we make is being made with what is actually in front of us rather than the story we've been rehearsing.

That doesn't mean the decision won't hurt. It doesn't mean we won't think about what happened again or wish parts of it had been different. But pain doesn't mean we're still attached to the situation. When we know we listened, spoke honestly and didn't abandon ourselves in the process, there is less to keep negotiating inside our own head. Two truths can exist at the same time, and once we stop asking one of them to disappear, we can finally decide how we want to move forward.

“Another perspective doesn’t have to change your truth. It can change how much of the truth you can see.” — Pamela

Questions This Blog Explores

1. Think of a situation you and someone else remember differently. What do you know about their perspective—and what are you assuming?

Separate what they have actually told you from the pieces you've filled in yourself. You may discover that some of what feels certain is based on an explanation you created when their side of the story was missing.

2. If you could listen to their perspective without needing to agree, defend or respond, what would you genuinely want to understand?

Consider what you still don't know about what they experienced, believed or needed at the time. Understanding their perspective doesn't require you to agree with their choices; it gives you information you couldn't have from your side alone.

3. If both perspectives were allowed to exist without either one needing to be wrong, what might that change about how you choose to move forward?

Notice what changes when you stop trying to determine which version should win. You may see the situation differently or reach the same conclusion, but your next choice can include what you've learned without asking you to abandon what was true for you.

About the Author  

Pamela is the writer behind Energy Waves Wellness Ltd., where she explores the relationship we have with ourselves and the experiences that shape the way we live. Her writing combines personal reflection, curiosity, and the natural rhythms of life to ask better questions rather than offer easy answers. She is the creator of the Return to Self & Rise Journey™, a year-long series of reflective essays and guided workbooks designed to help readers pay attention, question, choose, and adjust.