Never assume your thoughts about what someone said to you are fact. This life lesson came home to roost last night. Back in February this year, I had reached out to Jim’s sister, Dorothy, to touch base and chat with her. I adore Dorothy and really needed her as a lifeline as I moved through my grief after his death. She is probably the only other person on the planet who knew and understood Jim as I do. But I was so surprised that she answered the phone and was surly with me, demanding, “Why are you calling me? What do you want from me?” I tried to say I just wanted to chat, but she was insistent and I said goodbye and hung up.
My thoughts were many. Mostly I was thinking that she no longer wanted me calling to remind her of the pain of losing her brother. Maybe she did not feel as close to me as I did to her. It made me feel deeply sad.
Yesterday afternoon a Christmas card came from Dorothy’s daughter and mentioned that Dorothy had suffered a severe fall this year. Even if she did not want to talk to me, I needed to reach out, I was so concerned. So I phoned her. She was so delighted to hear from me and apologized for not phoning – but she had been recovering from a broken shoulder from the fall. I hesitantly said I had not phoned in such a long stretch because I had thought she did not want me to bother her. She was surprised, but then realized . . . . . she had been getting a lot of sales calls early this year and was pretty fed up with those people. Apparently when I phoned back in February, she did not realize it was me and thought I was a sales person.
Tears sprang to my eyes when I realized what had happened, tears of joy. I laughed to myself because I have so solidly learned this year that our thoughts are not fact. Here was my perfect demonstration. I would have sworn my thoughts were FACT. Dorothy said she did not want me calling, so clearly my thought that she did not want to hear from me again was FACT. Right? So fabulously wrong, and I am overjoyed my thoughts were not fact.
Any thought in your head that contains a judgment or cannot be proven in a court of law are just your thoughts, not facts. Facts can be proven in a court of law. There is no judgment involved. Thoughts are the sentence about it that plays in your brain. Everyone involved would look at the fact and agree on it. One of my favorite examples is if you tell me there is a beautiful dog on your lawn. That is a thought – not a fact. I might look outside and say, “What is that scruffy mutt?” The fact is: There is a dog on your lawn. You THINK the dog is beautiful. So, “there is a beautiful dog on my lawn” is your thought about it.
Later this winter, I will be grabbing a short flight down to Florida to visit with my sister-in-law and give her a nice, big hug. Damn robocallers!
Great reminder Joann. Thanks for sharing.
YES!! I had a kind of similar experience recently. A long-time friend (real life) “unfriended” me on Facebook. I knew that we had very differing political opinions and at first I thought I must have crossed a line. I was hurt. My mind went to all those dark places. The I self-coached and let it set a spell. I recently saw her at an event and she seemed happy to see me. Later I sent her a heart-felt message, asked her about it, and asked if there was something I needed to apologize for. I told her that I missed her. She apologized and said that maybe she’d been in a terrible mood and who knows what set her off. She “refriended” me and all is well.
I think, for me, the key to everything was in asking myself, “How do I want to show up in this relationship?”
You’re welcome! Life provides me the reminders I need!
So you thought you had lost a friend, when in fact, you had not lost her at all! Doesn’t it make you wonder if in the past there have been similar misunderstandings that created thoughts that prevented any further contact in friendships? Knowing what I now know about our thoughts, it becomes easier and even natural to reach out again and ask, “did you mean that like I heard it, or am I taking this wrong entirely?”