Reflect on a time when you encountered different perceptions of an event or interactions.

Address differences in your understanding of yourself in relation to another’s understanding of yourself.

ANSWER

When I think of a situation when how I understood myself differed greatly to others understanding of myself, it takes me to my very first relationship dating someone who I thought was an entirely good person for me. I considered myself happy and in love while most of the people surrounding me including my friends and family thought of the relationship as both destructive and abusive. Often we would have huge fights and physically harm each other before making up and conceiving the whole thing as a passion for each other. This went on and on and several occasions prompted some of my friends and family members to speak up against the relation but were met by a harsh and cold reception. It was a long time later that the relationship eventually came to an end and it was then on the verge of the break up that I began looking back at what had been happening to discover aspects of manipulation, violence and disrespect sprinkled all over what I thought was a good relationship. What surprised me most was the fact that this information had been relayed countless times to me by people closest but I was unable to see it as the truth.

On rare times, I saw it as the truth but thought of it as a temporary problem that would eventually go away but it never did and the relationship went from bad to worse. I would argue with a friend with regards to a comment made about the situation making all kinds of excuses and when I felt that was not enough, I would dump the friendship believing I was right and they were wrong. The period had become one of the constant conflicts with everyone and the happiness I thought I felt deteriorated drastically prompting serious shortcomings in other areas of my life including academics and professional life. I was snappy, angry all the time and vindictive as is often the case with constantly manipulated people. The relation came to an end gradually when I read a book that described the characteristics of a narcissistic person and it shed the light on who exactly I had been dating all along.

Later research reveals the concept of ‘sense of self’ where how I communicate with other people reflect greatly on how I communicate with myself. With a misplaced notion about the entire relationship, I lacked the insight into my awareness and the ability to be conscious of stimuli and events. Awareness, in this case, refers to the components of life I pay attention to, how I carry out intentions and what I remember about activities and experiences within the day. In my case on a regular day, I would pay attention to be small happy moments in the relationship before the manipulation and abuse began, I would believe that the things I did not like about it would soon change and if not, relationships are about the ability to withstand tough times. Lastly while going through the activities of the day I would remember friends or family who pointed out all the wrong things about me.

An understanding of ‘self-concept’ reveals that, “learning to recognize how your perspective influences your thoughts is a key step in understanding yourself and preparing to communicate with others” (Malär et al 2012). That the perception of self bears in it attitudes, beliefs and values where attitude is a learned predisposition and subject to change, for example, I considered myself happy in the relationship. Belief is a conviction of expression of confidence like which changes gradually over time like how I believed the incidences in the relationship as passion and love. Values are the ideals that guide our behaviour which is often long-lasting, for instance, the idea that I would find a way to make my situation better no matter what. A collection of these factors makes me who I am, and generally, who anyone is.

All these factors key in when it comes to our ability to communicate with each other determining how well we understand what they say and how well they receive the information we impart on them. It is possible to have a long conversation without making any real progress. For instance, I remember my friends holding an intervention meeting for and for two hours talking about how my relationship was not healthy for me and them and in my mind all I could think of was how much this was none of their business. They were meddling in my affairs without understanding ‘us’. The entire communication process was crooked even ruining my relationship with them rather than improving the value of my life. This goes in length to show the delicate balance of required for proper communication both in social scenarios and in professional ones as well. Psychology highlights that, “Our self-concept drives our motivations, methods, and experiences with communicating with others” (Malär et al 2012). For instance, if you perceive yourself as always being right, (something I have always heard about myself), communication will become stringent when it comes to disagreements. For such people is it even possible to form aggression and hostility to push a point further using every tool and technique available to them to attack instead of a logical and sane discussion about their position and perception.

However, Sponcil and Gitimu (2012) suggested that “in general, the more friends an individual has on social networking sites, the more positively they feel about themselves as a whole” (Sponcil et al 2012).  I learnt a lot from this experience and with the help of friends and family, I have been able to make better decisions, perceive myself in a better way and communicate better.

References

Malär, L., Krohmer, H., Hoyer, W. D., & Nyffenegger, B. (2011). Emotional brand attachment and brand personality: The relative importance of the actual and the ideal self. Journal of Marketing, 75, 35-52. DOI:10.1509/jmkg.75.4.35

Sponcil, M., & Gitimu, P. (2012). Use of social media by college students: Relationship to communication and self-concept. Journal of Technology Research, 4