“There’s not a person on this planet who really gets you.”
Abraham Hicks, as heard on a video on YouTube
I think that, deep down, we all want to be gotten. I want you to understand me. And you want me to understand you. And they want us to understand them. And we want them to understand us.
Now, I consider myself a pretty good listener (as long as I’m in my right mind, that is, haha). I am able to really listen to what people are saying, and I often repeat back what I hear them saying to clarify that I understand them. I use this in my teaching all the time. And I’m sure they appreciate it.
We all want to be understood. The Abraham quote above, however, seems to suggest that… that’s… not… possible.
Allow me to give a little more explanation of what I make this quote mean. I actually find it quite liberating, when I think about it. Sure, I don’t generally like it when it’s clear that someone else is not listening to me. This can be quite frustrating. In fact, that is exactly why I like the quote.
If I am talking to someone and I am aware that they have an idea of me, or of what I’m saying, that is completely off the mark, or am aware that they just aren’t that interested, I might say to myself (and have started doing so):
“Okay… this person doesn’t get me. This is kind of… annoying. But wait a second. Oh yeah! No one does! And what do I really need them to get, anyway? Why should I let this annoy me? I’m fricking awesome!”
And all of a sudden, voila, like magic—poof! Problem solved. I can relax. Because I don’t really need people to get me.
My worth as a human soul is not phased or changed or hurt either way.
Would I like it if they got me? Very much. I love feeling heard and gotten. It pleases me to no end to imagine that people really and truly understand me.
Yet I’ve also lived through enough life to realize that, even if people get me for short periods of time, they are as likely, the very next minute even, to get distracted, and start focusing on something besides me (those bastards). Or they start going off on some tangent that doesn’t make any sense to me. This will inevitably impact their perceptions, thoughts, and beliefs about the moment… and so, it is quite easy, I find, to feel that people are… not… really… paying attention to me in the way that I want them to.
If you find this irritating when it happens, I’m with you. Yet what is the solution? Get mad? Yell at them? Tell them they’re wrong? (But they are!) Even if they are wrong, for clearly not getting that we are the center of the Universe… it just seems to be the way it is.
Maybe that’s okay. Maybe we have it in our own power to generate our own feelings of being gotten.
Maybe we have someone, some place, somewhere we can turn to in order to get all the attention we want.
What I’m learning, is this: that’s what our Inner Beings are for, folks! I often refer to it as the “Higher Self” on this blog! I try to center myself in my own unique sense of well-being, joy, and feeling good as much as possible. Why do you think I love going to the cafe so much? Or running? Or reading? In other words, why do I enjoy high-quality, mostly-solitary activities?
It’s because in these things I often feel the most understood, appreciated, and adored, without exception, and unconditionally loved.
Name me a human being who can do that… ALL THE TIME… for someone else. Would you want to be that person? Man, that seems like a lot of work!
Maybe we don’t need someone else to “get” us. Maybe we just need to get ourselves into Alignment, into that feeling-good place where we feel connected to all things, where we are happy, inspired, and satisfied.
Are we really so needy that we need those fickle humans to make sense of our oddness, our peculiarities, our strangeness?
How much do we really need to be gotten?