I understand
June 2023
When you tell someone “I understand,” it is a way of expressing your love and compassion, much needed by the other in times of distress, says Megha Bajaj Itruly believe that the two most powerful words we can ever tell someone in a relationship are these: ‘I understand.’ Sometimes, these might be even more needed than ‘I love you.’ Think about it. When someone feels understood in your presence, love is already implied. And yet, there could be people who know you love them but still feel very ‘not understood’ in the relationship.
Empathy is so important for each one of us to enjoy beautiful relationships and peace of mind as we interact with the world. I believe it is something that we all need to have ample amounts of, and it needs to be taught in every school much before anything else.
I understand. These two words are so healing to the soul no matter what you are going through, be it grief, a relationship loss, physical trauma, or just any kind of blue emotion. Someone just comes, holds your hands, and says the magical words, “I understand.” It’s not that your pain goes away or that even a solution is found. Nothing about the situation may change, and yet these words offer the strength to either accept, change, or reverse whatever it is that you are facing. If you have had someone simply understand you, you know the truth in these words.
‘I understand’ is not a phrase only for tough times. Sometimes, even as you are experiencing immense love for someone and they just look at you and tell you, “I understand your love,” it makes you feel so validated. If someone is going through immense happiness and instead of looking at them as if they’ve gone crazy, you say, with a gentle smile, “I understand,” it adds so much to the moment. These two words, coming at the right time from someone who matters, give a feeling of deep reiteration. This could be true for the biggest of successes and the most devastating of failures—I understand.
Genuineness, of course, is the most important thing in the realm of emotions as well as expressions borne from it. The moment we can feel one with someone and then utter these words, that’s when it makes all the difference. Else it’s simply a verbal vomit and does not create any transformation.
A beautiful nuance that I discovered in a life-changing satsang (spiritual gathering) with my guru, Mahatria, is that we can never ever completely understand what the other is going through. We can only understand what we understand, and that too is enough. For instance, if someone is grieving the loss of a parent— and I do know how it feels, having
lost my mother a year ago—I still cannot comprehend in totality the threshold of the other’s pain, the relationship they shared, or the intensity of loss. It’s too individualistic. However, what I can understand is what I felt (or would feel) in a similar situation and extend my empathy. Every once in a while, I have started doing this: Whenever another person is going through a particular situation, I already know how I am looking at it from my point of view. I now look at the same situation from that person’s point of view, and it just helps give me so much perspective. I believe it has made me into a more beautiful lover, a better leader, and, in general, just a more compassionate and peaceful human being. Somehow, we have created a world which is so preoccupied with itself that very often, these two simple words, ‘I understand,’ are missed. In all possibility, in your very home, right now, someone is simply waiting for you to look into their eyes and tell them, “I understand.”
Megha Bajaj is a bestselling author, film script writer and poet. An ardent seeker at heart, she also runs her online writing and healing workshops called WoW.
You can read more about her on www.MeghaBajajWoW.com.
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