The Space Between Intention and Interpretation

Communication goes something like this: Person A says or does something—words or an action on a blank piece of paper—which is then shaped and coloured in by that person’s personality, life experiences, current mood, and of course, whatever intention Person A had in the first place.

“Honey, I think you should go with the red dress.”

Then that piece of communication falls into a giant space. The Space Between Intention and Interpretation.

Person B will eventually receive that piece of communication and based on their own personality, life experiences and current mood, will make a choice about just how he or she will interpret that piece of information.

“So you’re saying I look bad in the black dress. Jerk.”

What happens in the Space?

A LOT can happen in the Space.

The Space is the place where the difference between intention and interpretation is established—where assumptions reign supreme. The Space is the place where a good intention can become transformed into a malicious one, where a meaningless exchange can morph into a unkind gesture, where an action can be turned all the way around and upside down—where not responding to a text message can change from “I forgot to text you back” to “she must be mad at me…I must have said something to upset her.” The Space is the place where something simple can become unnecessarily complex, where an answer can raise more questions, where innocence can be turned into something to feel guilty about. The Space is the place where offense is born.

There is a potentially massive disconnect that threatens between intention and interpretation.

Whatever you say or do is thrown out there and can very easily end up in that Space. You have no control over what happens in that Space, or just how it comes out on the other end. Your intentions may not be interpreted in a linear, simple way. Your intentions may be unclear to the receiver, or Person B’s interpretation of your intention might have gotten all messed up in the Space. It’s humanity, and we deal with it every day.

This problem is woven into the fabric of TV shows, movies and real-life stories alike. Watch any episode of Thomas the Tank Engine or Daniel Tiger’s Neighbourhood and you’ll see that right from the start, we are showing our kids that we struggle as humans with communicating how we feel and understanding just how our words or actions are going to be received. We often need to have a reconciliation conversation to clear the air and make it right.

Watch any sitcom or rom-com or plain-old com or the news or your Facebook or Twitter feed and you will see loads of people feeling slighted, hurt or offended by something someone said or did. There are a lot of memes circulating about that these days, which also speaks to the sort of sociocultural climate we are living in right now.

People can be mean, of course, and blatantly so, and we all have a right to stand up for what we believe in and what we feel is right, but I also wonder just how many situations could be resolved by exploring Person A’s actual intentions, and by Person B exploring how and why he or she arrived at that understanding. I wonder how often intentions were either communicated poorly or interpreted differently than intended.

Anais Nin said,

“We don’t see things as they are. We see things as we are.”

We look at every situation through our own perspective, and even when we are trying to be nice, trying to be helpful, trying to prove something about ourselves, trying to show others that we want to feel important, trying to do the right thing or trying not to offend anyone, there’s no guarantee that our words or actions will be received in the manner with which they were delivered.

I wish that all of the things I’ve said to people and all of my actions were interpreted as I intended them. But I know that’s not the case. I also wish that I could have tried harder to shape my communications with a clearer intention so there would be less of a chance of them being misinterpreted. But I’m not perfect, and I haven’t.

There are times when I wish I could have said the perfect thing to comfort or encourage someone, or said the perfect thing to break the ice and start a good conversation, or ask the appropriate and considerate question, or just done what I know I should have done, but instead I’m sure I have often peppered the Space with questions that seemed awkward or responses that sounded like flat, run-of-the-mill catch phrases that were just asking to be interpreted as such instead of with the colour of caring or kindness.

Maybe in some cases, particularly if it was someone who knows me well, Person B knew my heart and understood my intentions, and interpreted them in the best possible way, but we can’t know that for sure.

There have been times when I have felt hurt, stressed, jealous or angry and ended up speaking through the filter of those things. There are also times when I know I have felt hurt or misunderstood someone’s actions toward me, and letting it bother or offend me when instead it was an invitation to look more closely at the intention.

How many times have you lain awake at night, worrying about how you said something and realizing that even though you meant it one way, your comment could have been interpreted in a different way? We stress about how our intentions were interpreted, and sometimes it was rightly so—an invitation to make it right—but other times, it could be our insecurities telling us we did something wrong, when in fact the person actually understood our intentions. How many times have you tried to clear your conscience by bringing up a conversation you had with someone weeks ago, only to find out the person doesn’t even remember the conversation, or didn’t interpret it the way you worried it was interpreted? The Space can make things so messy!

How can we be clearer about our intentions without becoming a robotic Captain Obvious?

Why is there such a huge gap in understanding? 

Why are more and more people choosing to feel offended about things that could possibly be misunderstood intentions or just someone having a bad day? Perhaps the Space is magnified because of social media and the freedom and availability people have to use social platforms to speak their minds and express their opinions, but then it's our responsibility to manage and navigate the Space with maturity, humility, strength, grace, mercy and love. 

I’ve noticed with myself that I tend to interpret communication in a more negative way the more hurt, angry and uncaring I feel. When my sense of self-worth is low, I tend to be vulnerable to misunderstandings and prone to impatience—that’s when I can make something out of nothing. That's when I can say hurtful things, even though I won't really mean them tomorrow. That’s when the Space widens.

On the other hand, when I’m feeling confident within myself and understand all of my imperfections, I am way more capable of loving and understanding others. When I take the time to work on my own vulnerabilities, when I work through negative feelings and let go of things, and when I take care of myself, things don’t bother me or affect me nearly as much. I am way more adept at interpreting intention. I love to understand. I can build a bridge over the Space.

I wonder if perhaps humility and strength could bring us to a place where we can more easily understand others…a place where we can receive words and actions with love and in the same way, give our words and actions away with love. Love is definitely the strongest material with which to build a bridge of understanding—to shrink the Space. Love covers over a multitude of wrongs.

What was my intention for writing this? I want to point out the existence of the Space between intention and interpretation with the hopes of making it smaller—with the hopes of building bridges of understanding.

Purpose

I had a conversation about purpose with some friends the other day. The topic of “purpose” is one that I am passionate about; everyone has a purpose in life and it’s what gives us the motivation to continue when things get difficult, a sense of importance and significance, a reason to live. Purpose is the fuel that keeps us going; purpose is the baton we are given to carry.

You and I will have many purposes in our lives, and there may be one at any given time that feels more urgent or important than the others. Your talents and your strengths and your passions were given to you to help with your purpose. The place where you are today—what you are doing today—is helping you carry out your purpose.

For years, I have struggled with the meaning of purpose and what my personal “purpose” is. I always saw my life as an upward arc that would hopefully bring me to some big “purpose” in which all my dreams were realized, and then I would realize what it was that I was meant to do. I always worried that I was on the wrong path, headed in the wrong direction, behind other people, or that I might never figure out what it was that I was supposed to do, and then would end up missing out on some significant accomplishment.

I always saw it as some “big thing” on the horizon, just out of reach. It's been stressful.

Years ago, I was having a conversation about purpose with a wise friend of mine, who asked me, “What if you are doing what you are supposed to be doing, right now? What if you’re already doing it?”

That honestly changed everything for me. Then my wise sister suggested the same thing to me during another similar conversation, months later, which resonated again. Then I realized that during all that time that I’ve spent praying and trying to decipher my purpose, I was actually already living it out; I was already doing it.

We can’t always see and we won’t always know how our existence, our actions and our words are affecting other people’s lives. People don’t always give positive feedback. We typically aren’t celebrated until after we die—and at that point, we won’t be there to hear how we impacted others.

But we do.

I absolutely love to see people living out their dreams and doing what they are passionate about. I love celebrating those “big things” with people—it’s one of the true joys of life. But just as much as that, I love to hear about the “little things” that people do: random acts of kindness, paying strangers compliments, being brave and acting on the gentle urging of that still, small voice inside that nudges us toward our purpose. These are not little things. These are big things.

I’m grateful to another wise friend for reminding me that as parents, our children are one of our big purposes in life. Sometimes I lose sight of that when parenting and caring for children feels like a lot of work and cuts in to the time during which I feel stressed that I need to be doing other things. But it’s true: being there and caring for our family and friends, our significant others, our children, is a huge purpose. If you can pop your head through the mountain of dirty diapers that you have changed, take a deep breath after cleaning up a dinner that took an hour to make but only 10 minutes to eat (for the millionth time), shut out the worrying and overthinking and just listen to your kids talk about whatever they are interested in, remember that you are carrying out a very significant purpose. You’ll never know how you impacted your kids or helped shape them into the people they are becoming, but it’s so important to be there for them because in what will feel like no time at all, that stage will be over and they will be making their own decisions and carrying out their own adult purposes.

Remember that as beautiful as it is to chase a dream, as satisfying as it is to work hard and achieve a goal, and as important as you feel when you are publicly recognized for something, that a lot of your life’s purpose is carried out in the cumulative effect of repetitive daily activities, in a simple action, in simple consistency, in just being there. The way that we connect with strangers and loved ones alike creates various ripple effects throughout our communities. We can’t see how everything connects, but I bet that God is looking down on the earth and sees a simply stunning collage of purposes, intertwining and glowing with light.

You’re here for a reason, and you’re carrying out your purpose. You are an inspiration to others and all of what you do doesn’t go unnoticed. There are many people who are affected by what you do, and it’s so important that you are here. Never forget that you have purpose, even if it’s just being you.

A Letter to Yourself on a Good Day

I’m having a bad day.

Maybe you are, too. Or maybe you're having a good day. Either way...there's something I'd like to say.

Bad days have several sources: situational, hormonal, depression-related, or just a day when things aren’t going well for you and your mood adjusts to the circumstances and snowballs into a Bad Day. You can’t avoid them, like you can’t avoid the rain falling on you in an open field, but you also don't have to drown within them.

Bad Days can descend on you like an itchy, acrylic black sweater that doesn’t breathe and feels more and more annoying as the day wears on, but it’s too tight that you feel like you can’t actually take it off.

I have good days, too—I’ve been lucky enough to have more good days than bad—and I’ll have them again. I love those good days. I love being alive on those good days. The acrylic sweater is gone and is replaced with a more breathable option, like cotton, and things feel light, airy, easy.

The difference between your mood and emotions, your way of reacting, your overall perspective on a good day vs. a bad day is striking. I sometimes have a hard time reconciling the vast difference. Bad days are like bad dreams that you can’t see outside of…the dreams during which you don’t realize you’re dreaming. When you wake up—once it’s over—the Bad Day can often seem inconsequential and insignificant—as though everything was a huge deal in the dream but then seems so silly when you look back it. Sometimes it doesn’t even make sense.

If you can take the time to focus on the reality that this is just a phase, whether it’s just a Bad Day or a Bad Month or a Bad Season, you can reach down into your heart and find the Good Day feeling. That’s you, and it’s always there. Believe me when I say it’s always there. It’s just being pushed down in favour of the dominant, wretched Bad Day feelings.

So how do you reconcile the differences? How do you reach out and link arms with the happiness and joy and the real you that is buried under the sadness?

Well, counselling or talking to someone is a great option—but you could start with this: when you’re having a good day, when you feel like you’re living out your life with purpose, when the stars seem to align and the birds are singing a sweet chorus and you feel the warmth of God’s love everywhere, when you recognize your value and when you feel happy and just want to help others out of that surplus, write yourself a letter.

Tell yourself how you really feel about yourself. Tell the truth. Remind yourself of how lucky you are and of all the things you have. Make a list of what you know you are truly thankful for. Tell yourself all the things you like about yourself. Tell yourself all the things you don’t love about yourself but you’ve accepted. Crack a joke. Dish out some wisdom. Reassure yourself that “the heart of life is good,” as John Mayer says, and that you’re going to be OK. You can become drenched in a rainstorm, but it’s just water; it will dry.

Within feelings of hopelessness, waves of crushing sadness, indecision, and scattered thoughts, it can be really hard to remember these things, yet it’s extremely crucial that you do. You know yourself better than anyone else does, so it stands to reason that you will know what you need to hear when you’re going through a rough time.

I did this for myself this year, and I’ve already gone back to that letter more than once. It has really helped.

We can struggle with reaching out to others and saying that we need help, and I would definitely recommend finding the courage to do it, but at the very least, as a small but meaningful start, you can have something written in your own hand, for your own self, reminding yourself of your value and your purpose. Remind yourself of the truth that exists underneath the storm clouds that threaten rain.

Friends, family, mentors and counsellors are all really important and can make a huge difference in helping you through bad days. Just don’t forget the strength you have within yourself, to help yourself gain perspective and emotional balance.

Write a letter to yourself on a good day, and read it on a bad day.

Being a Mother in 2019

Happy Mother's Day! 

Over the past couple of weeks, I have been thinking about what it's like being a mother in 2019.

Throughout history, mothers have loved their children fiercely, with a love that’s hard to adequately describe, and they have wanted their kids to be safe, strong, happy and healthy. Those feelings and desires, however, have been affected by the moment those moms have lived in history and the issues that they faced at the time, depending on the world those moms have lived in, and where in the world they have lived. I don’t know what it was like to be a mother in any age or any year before 2010, and I know that every mother throughout the ages has struggled with different problems, but what I can do today is describe what I feel it’s like to be a mom in 2019.

In talking with friends and managing my own feelings, I have noticed some themes surrounding motherhood in this current moment, and I want to acknowledge them here because I think we can be really hard on ourselves as moms—I think we feel a particular 2019 sort of pressure—but together, we can work toward relieving that pressure.

Pressure—I certainly feel a lot of pressure. Sitting like a heavy cloud, ready to rain, is the pressure to be a badass, hardworking, hustling mom. Pressure to do all the things. Pressure to plan kickass birthday parties, to look and feel your best, to feed your kids all the right foods. Pressure to keep it together. Pressure to keep up. Pressure to post great pictures. Pressure to #girlboss your way to the top and take advantage of the opportunities that women have today, for which other women have fought.  

We have the Internet, and thousands of moms who blog about their lives and even more thousands of moms that comment with their opinions about things. There are quickly-passing trends to follow and opinions to read about in order to make up your own mind about anything and everything related to raising kids. What’s the safest car seat? What should you feed your baby first? Should your baby sleep with you in your room or in their own room? Should you vaccinate or not? How much screen time should you allow? When should you give your kids their first phone?

There is so much discussion, so much banter about motherhood and its surrounding issues that we’ve created a lot of pressure live up to certain standards; otherwise, we can feel like failures.

Being a mother in 2019 can also be very isolating.

We have social media. We have Facebook, which “connects you with others.”

What they don’t advertise is the side effects, which may include: comparison depression, lack of absolute honesty (it’s just impossible), high risk of offending others, may actually separate rather than connect, or feelings of anxiety and fear about what’s going on in the world and what other people are doing that you aren’t (but should you?) This only threatens to compound the pressure we’re already feeling.

Platforms like Facebook and Instagram were intended to connect us with others, but they can often, ironically, isolate us from others. We can more easily default to communicating through our phones and computers. It makes sense because when you are home with the kids and can’t go out, you connect through social media. When you are up at 2 a.m. feeding your baby, you go on Facebook. When you are up at 4:30 a.m. because you woke up worrying and you can’t sleep, you scroll through Instagram. It seems like it takes a much greater, more conscious effort to make plans to actually see someone face-to-face. It’s just easier to go online.

Life in general is gradually feeling more isolated. We have self-checkouts, mobile orders and grocery delivery, all very convenient things that I use, but they do remove us another step from person-to-person interactions. We are encouraged to “visit us online!” or “book your appointment online!” instead of picking up the phone and calling to talk to a real person. We don’t call friends as much anymore; we text them. If someone calls me who usually texts me, I worry that there’s an emergency.  And what’s going on in our phones? We’re simultaneously in the middle of about 40 different text conversations or message threads that never really begin and never really end. It’s distracting. It can feel lonely.

A mother in 2019 also has a lot to worry about. Every mom has had worries when it comes to her child or children, and being a mother has probably been much more stressful in other ages, but 2019 has its own stresses; 2019 has its own brand of anxiety. Currently, there are staggering statistics about suicide in teens and young adults, the continuation of cyber bullying, sex trafficking, the dangers and effects of screen time and the creeps who post videos on YouTube that kids watch. We have to worry about what to allow our kids to do online, how to monitor their own social media accounts and who or what they may have been exposed to on the Internet that they may or may not tell us about. These Internet-related issues are parenting problems that our own mothers didn’t have—so how are we supposed to know how to deal with them?

I want to point all of this out because in this age of all of this pressure, the isolating world of our phones, all of these choices we have to make, all of this commentary we find ourselves reading online, all of these people we may offend, all of this hustling we have to do—this “proverbial” hot mess we find ourselves in that is 2019—we can help each other. We can relieve the pressure. We can dismantle the walls of isolation. We can support one another through these anxieties.

Go easier on yourself. I don’t know what it’s like to be a mom before 2010, but I can say that being a mom in 2019 comes with its own brand of hardships and challenges, and this doesn’t mean that you’re not a good mom. You’re living your life; you’re doing what you need to do, what you want to do, being the mom that only you can be for your kids. It wasn’t a mistake that you ended up with the kids you have. They ended up with you because you were the best one for the job.

Remember that even if you live your life differently than someone else, you were both faced with many of the same decisions.

Remember that we all just want our kids to be OK.

Remember that mothers have such a crucial, vital characteristic in common, which can be the point of connection with any other mother: we love our kids, and that’s what matters the most. It’s the quality of motherhood that has been innately within every mother since the beginning of time.

Remember that this is a LOT of pressure; we’re dealing with things that our parents didn’t have to deal with. To any parents raising kids since the Internet was created: we’re the first ones to navigate motherhood with the backdrop of the Internet. Googling our kids’ maladies in the dark hours of the morning, only to find out that it could be something more serious than just the flu. Wanting a few minutes of peace and letting the kids play video games for another half an hour, only to feel guilty about it later. Sending emails or booking appointments on our phones while half-listening to our kids. Struggling to “have it all,” whatever that means, and wondering why someone else on Instagram seems to have it together, but we don’t. Comparing instead of connecting. Setting our sights so high and feeling like failures when we can’t do the impossible.

Remember that we’re all meant to do different things and be different people, and if you can’t or don’t want to do what someone else does, well thank goodness; you are being who you are supposed to be.

Remember that we need community; we need face-to-face connection. Whatever you can manage, communicating with someone—period—is so crucial to our well-being as individuals and as mothers. Being part of a community relieves the pressures of motherhood.

We need to wrap our arms around one another, encourage one another, love one another—be 2019 mothers with one another. If you need someone to talk to, I would be honoured to listen.

I hope that acknowledging what it’s like to be a mother in this particular age, this particular millennium, century, decade and year, brings perspective and helps to justify all of the pressures, all of the guilt, all of the 2019 brand of exhaustion we face. If you had nothing else to do or to worry about except for the safety and well-being of your children, life would be complicated and challenging. But it’s more than that because we have a whole host of other things to worry about and do and succeed at, all at the same time.

Cheers to you, raising your kids in 2019. It’s a challenge we share, and if we don’t lose sight of it, we can build a community based on it and thrive.   

You Are Important

When an artist dies, their work increases in value. When loved ones pass away, we acknowledge their value and we mourn their loss—we talk freely and openly about how much we loved them and about all of the ways they made a difference.

If our lives are ultimately going to be recognized as having so much value and importance and significance, why can it be so hard to see our own value, importance and significance here when we are alive? I have struggled in this area, and I know I’m not the only one.

We don’t really know the kind of impact we are having on the world today; we can’t know. We just don’t get the feedback from everyone we have impacted, inspired and helped, and we will never know our full impact. We won’t hear all the things we mean to all the people we mean something to, and know about all the times we made a difference in someone’s life, just like we won’t hear our own eulogies.

Most people don’t tell those they love just how much they love them, all the time. We just don’t do this as often as we should and maybe we can’t really express the depth and complexity of what loved ones mean to us, especially directly to them, and not on a regular basis. People (in general) tend to be critical, especially through social media, and often talk about the things that they don’t like and don’t spend enough time talking about the things they do like and appreciate about people.

You have no idea how many times you have encountered a person and said or done something that has stuck with them forever as an inspiration. I have encountered countless strangers who have impacted me in this way. They have come in the form of comments from customers when I worked at a grocery store, or comments from employees at counters where I was the customer, or the person who said something funny and made me laugh, or the elderly who are looking back more than looking ahead in their lives and want to bestow all their wisdom on younger generations.

These are not even necessarily planned interactions or rehearsed comments; they are simple statements, actions and gestures that we do without really thinking about them, going about our lives and being ourselves, but they matter.

We are living and moving and growing, every part of every day, incorporating ourselves in countless ways into our communities and the world, and people notice what we do or don’t do. They may not tell you about it, but it doesn’t mean you aren’t inspiring your loved ones as you go about your life. I remember a lot of things my family and friends have said to me or have done throughout my life that have inspired me as well. We don’t always say it, but love and motivation to action are often born in these conversations and moments and encounters.

If you ever feel unseen, overlooked, unimportant or undervalued, please remember that the value that others place on you isn’t always equal to what is expressed back to you. Your value isn’t equal to others’ perceived value of you. Your value isn’t equal to your own perceived value of yourself. Your value is exactly equal to the value that God placed on you when He made you. He definitely thinks you are important; He definitely thinks that you matter.

The world wouldn’t be exactly the same without you. Everyone who has lived and is now gone is missed—we all ache for those we have lost—every day. So don’t for a second question your value and your importance.

We may never know how and to what extent we inspire the world and how much we matter to others because of the fact that we can’t and don’t always share exactly how others make us feel. We can’t go back in time and locate strangers who said something we will never forget and tell them how it helped us. The opportunities don’t always arise and it can be hard to summon the courage to say these kinds of things.

But you know what? You can be bold. In any way possible, tell people today, right now, on the green side of the sod, if they said something or did something that you appreciate. Take any and every opportunity to show appreciation for people and reinforce how much they matter. This we can do. Perhaps we can begin to recognize our own value and place in this world as we recognize and appreciate the importance of those around us.