To learn to love we must, first of all, learn to understand others.
We will never be able to love anyone if we are not able to understand them first.
Understanding, then, is itself an act of love, the awareness that we are all equal to each other.
Love requires understanding: for the choices that are made, for one's own and other people's moods, for fears, for dreams, for emotions and thoughts.
Love and understanding: much more than "understanding"
Understanding is much more than understanding: it means going beyond the surface and understand what it means to be the other. It is not enough to think about it, you have to try to really put yourself in someone else's shoes.
To love means to overcome my selfish interest to understand how others see the world, to understand its rules and accept the choices and their way of life.
I cannot love a person without having accepted him for who he is and we cannot succeed in this without having first understood him.
Empathy also plays a very important role in helping us to really understand who is close to us because it allows us to tune in to emotion unspoken, about what animates the minds of others before they can communicate it to us.
Being empathic means knowing how to understand others by perceiving their emotions and thoughts. Empathy requires caution towards others to notice even those almost imperceptible signals that often communicate to you more than many words.
How to understand others
Understanding also means remembering that no one, starting with me, is perfect and that everyone may need our help and support.
Understanding also means stop judging and not to give weight to who is right or who is wrong, but to get in real contact with people and not with the image we have made of them.
Without understanding, love is impossible because I cannot love a label or a prejudice: not understanding others, not trying to really know them, I remain firm on my impressions, on the preconceptions I have towards them and I end up classifying people with a title, a character or a physical adjective.
I want to offer you a couple of exercises to become aware and train your ability to understand:
First exercise: before expressing any judgment, try to find out what other people really care about, what they care about, what drives them to act or speak in a certain way.
Don't settle for first impressions or first justifications but try to go as deeply as possible to really understand what motivates people to act in a certain way.
Second exercise: Identify an aspect of someone that usually annoys you and doesn't accept.
Focus on it and begin to observe it when he shows up forcing you to let go instead of reacting. He also begins to understand the reasons, the reasons for which behavior or trait that annoys you so much.
Try to observe the positives and find out why others are not bothered by them. In this the emotional diary will be very useful to you.
Understanding is the key to accepting.
How about taking my relationship test before we wrap up?
It will allow you to understand if you are capable of really love others and make them love you.
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Without understanding there will never be love
Really understanding does not mean putting yourself in the shoes of others to criticize better, but learning to recognize that those shoes have a sense and a value and that even if you would act or think differently, the choices of others, their weaknesses they are worthy of respect.
We understand when we start thinking, “Now I understand what it feels like and I realize that it is permissible".
He who understands does not judge, but supports and encourages.
