Life Wisdom - By Words of Taoism - The Need To Be Understood - Life Wisdom #60 - Taoism

Episode Date: September 12, 2026

Being understood is one of the ways we feel close to another person. There is a particular ease in knowing someone can see the intention behind an awkward sentence, or recognise tiredness in a silence that might otherwise look cold. IFree resources, books and more on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://wordsoftaoism.com/⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠My Substack Blog:⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://taoismteachings.substack.com/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Music I use, as a playlist:⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://tinyurl.com/spotifyzenplaylist⁠⁠⁠⁠

Hear that? It's your money calling. It wants a promotion. Elevate your savings with the Scotia high-interest savings account. Always earn high regular interest rates that grow the more you save and invest. Conditions apply. Visit scotiabank.com slash h-I-SA to learn more. Scotia Bank. You're richer than you think. Welcome to Life Wisdom. I am Chen Lee, author of the blog.

word of Taoism on Substack, and you're listening to my podcast. The conversation ended an hour ago, and you are still in it. Perhaps someone close to you asked for a favor, and this time you said you couldn't. You were tired. You had been looking forward to an evening with nothing required of you. You tried to say it kindly, and they answered, you always find a reason when it's me. You explained that it wasn't like that.

They said they understood in a voice that suggested they had understood something quite different, and the conversation came to an end. What troubles you is quite specific? You could bear their disappointment. You wish you could have helped, and you understand

that hearing no was unwelcome. What feels much harder to leave alone is the thought that they believe you didn't care. Somewhere in another room, another person is carrying a version of you that feels untrue, and you cannot quite settle into your evening while that version remains.

Most of us have an evening like this, somewhere in our lives. Sometimes it lasts until morning. Sometimes we are still composing the explanation years later for a person we no longer speak to. I would like to spend some time with that unfinished conversation because the need beneath it deserves kindness and because there may be a way to honour that need

without giving the rest of our life over to it. Being understood is one of the ways we feel close to another person. There's a particular ease in knowing someone can see the intention behind an awkward sentence or recognize tiredness in a silence that might otherwise look cold. In their company, we do not have to provide the whole history of ourselves before every small act. something has already been received and remembered. We can arrive a little clumsily and still be recognized. That is part of why a misunderstanding can hurt far beyond the words exchanged.

We thought the other person knew us. We thought the years had established something they could lean on when an evening went badly. then one refusal seems to become evidence about our whole character and we find ourselves trying to recover more than the meaning of a sentence. We are trying to recover our place in their affection. There can be a great deal of love in that effort. We explain because the relationship matters, because we want to remain reachable,

because it pains us to think we have left someone feeling uncared for. We should be careful with advice that treats all of this as weakness. The wish to be seen accurately by someone we love belongs to the ordinary tenderness of being human. And yet, even within that tenderness, there is a distinction worth finding. Someone may understand our reason and still will. wish we had chosen differently. They may know we care and still feel lonely tonight. Understanding leaves room for a response we would not have chosen.

When we forget this, we can keep explaining long after the explanation has been heard. Because what we are waiting for now is the disappearance of the other person's disappointment. Imagine that our friend in the kitchen receives a reply. I know you've had a difficult week. I was just hoping to see you. There is still sadness in that sentence. We may feel the old impulse to offer another reason, to make the case so complete that no hurt could remain.

But perhaps something has already been understood. Perhaps the next thing the relationship asks of us is to allow two honest experiences to exist together. our need for an evening alone and their wish that we could have come this becomes harder when the reply offers no such reassurance we have explained

and the other person seems unconvinced so we reach for more detail the first message supplies something they didn't know the next corrects an ambiguity by the third there may be very little

new information left to give, although the need to send it feels stronger than ever. It is useful to notice that moment gently. Somewhere along the way, the explanation has acquired another job. We are asking it to bring back a particular response, something that will let us put the phone down and feel like ourselves again. Until that response comes, every sentence seems unfinished. We are waiting for the other person to release us from their interpretation. There is an understandable hope behind this.

We imagine that words used with enough care can make misunderstanding impossible. Somewhere there must be a sentence that is sufficiently clear and generous, a sentence that carries our meaning across without anything being lost. If we haven't been received, perhaps we simply haven't found it yet. So we continue searching sometimes with real intelligence through a problem that intelligence alone cannot finish. Because the words are only part of a conversation. They arrive in someone else's day,

among feelings we may not know about, Beside memories we cannot see. The person listening has their own account of what has happened between us. They may need time. They may be defending themselves against something our explanation asks them to reconsider. They may also have a point we have not yet heard. However carefully we speak, we are speaking into a life that has its own movement. This is an uncomfortable limit to encounter, especially when we have learned to rely on being

reasonable. We can choose our words, reconsider our tone, take responsibility for a careless remark. All of that matters. But understanding has to happen in the person listening, and some part of that happening will always remain beyond our reach. Our care can make room for it. Our insistence cannot guarantee it. As the effort grows, our attention often narrows.

We begin to listen for signs that we have finally been cleared of the accusation. A sentence from the other person arrives, and before it has finished, we are preparing the correction. We know exactly which part is unfair. We can hear the exaggeration. Meanwhile, something quieter in what they said may be passing us by. So, let us return to the conversation for a moment and stand on the other side of it. Someone asked us to come over, and we couldn't. Perhaps they have felt distant from us lately.

Perhaps several small disappointments have gathered without being mentioned. Their sentence, you always find a reason when it's me. reaches far beyond what they can fairly claim. Still, underneath it, there may be a simpler sentence struggling to arrive. I've been missing you, and I don't know whether you've been missing me. We cannot assume that this is what they mean, but we can become curious enough to find out. Until now, we have been answering the accusation.

We have explained why tonight we're. is difficult and why our refusal says nothing about our affection. The other person may be trying, however awkwardly, to speak about a distance they have been feeling for weeks. Two people can keep talking like this for a long time, each becoming more precise about something the other has not asked. What changes the conversation is a willingness to pause inside our own defense. We might ask whether this has been building for a while and then give the answer somewhere to land. We might hear that they have been lonely. We might also learn that we have cancelled more often than we remembered. Being sincere about tonight

does not mean we have seen the whole pattern clearly. There is room here for a kind of honesty that does not require us to collapse. We can say, I can see why you've been disappointed. I hadn't realized how long it had been. We can mean that and still be unable to come tonight. We can acknowledge an effect we regret while remaining truthful about what we intended.

The conversation becomes more spacious when neither person has to surrender their entire experience for the others to be real. For many of us, this is difficult, because an admission feels as though it will spread. If we concede that we were distracted, perhaps we will be judged uncaring. If we acknowledge one mistake,

perhaps the whole accusation will be treated as true. So we defend everything, including the small part we might otherwise have been glad to repair. Our fear of being misrepresented makes us less available to the truth we could actually use. It helps to keep the scale human. A particular evening can be handled badly. A message can be thoughtless. We can owe someone an apology for something specific without accepting a permanent description of ourselves.

In fact, the more willing we become to name the specific, thing, honestly. The less we need to spend the conversation proving that we are a good person. There is something real to attend to now, and attending to it is already a way of caring. This is where a Taoist perspective can offer a different quality of movement. The theme of non-contention invites us to consider what happens when an exchange no longer has to end in a victory. We are still present. We still have something to say, but our words can begin to serve the relationship and the situation, with less of their energy spent trying to secure our position inside them. In the kitchen, that might look surprisingly ordinary. We recognize

that our friend has been missing us. We explain that tonight we need to rest. If we genuinely want to, we suggest another time. There is warmth in the reply and there is a limit. We allow both to remain visible without adding another paragraph to ensure that the limit cannot possibly be disliked. The practice is in that last restraint. We can often feel the sentence gathering, the one that will remind them of everything we have done,

or reveal the inconsistency in their complaint. It may be accurate. It may also pull the conversation back into a contest that neither of us has enjoyed. Before sending it, we can ask what it is likely to make possible. Will it clarify something important? Will it help us meet? Sometimes, on an honest reading,

we discover that we simply want the discomfort to change sides. There's no need to be ashamed of noticing that. Being hurt makes most of us want to return some portion of the hurt. The useful moment is the one in which we see the impulse before it has become another sentence, someone will carry home. We can let it pass without having to follow it and then decide what we actually wish to contribute.

Of course, there are conversations in which a clearer response really is necessary. A false account at work may affect responsibilities or a decision, and correcting it can be the appropriate thing to do. We may need to put the facts in writing and ensure that the relevant people have them. The practical task has its own shape. Once it is done, we can consider whether or not. our further effort is still serving that task, or whether we have begun trying to manage every private opinion that might remain. In a close relationship, the distinction can be more tender. Someone who cares about us may be too upset to listen tonight, and much more able tomorrow.

Leaving the conversation for a while can be an act of trust, particularly when we make clear that we intend to return. A relationship does not have to settle every difficulty at the hour when both people are least able to hold it. There are also patterns that deserve to be taken seriously. If every limit we express is repeatedly turned into evidence that we do not love someone, we may need to become clearer about what we will continue discussing. We can be willing to explain a decision without spending each evening defending our right to make one. Sometimes the kindest available sentence is simply that we are going to stop here and speak again when the conversation can move differently.

Knowing when to pause requires attention. Silence can offer room and it can also be used to punish. An explanation can invite contact and it can become pressure. The same outward gesture carries different meanings depending on what we are doing with it. We have to stay close enough to ourselves to notice whether we are leaving space for another person or trying to make them anxious enough to follow us. That is why the question is never as simple as whether to speak or speak or something. speak or stay silent. We are learning to recognize what still needs our participation. There may be a

fact to clarify, an apology to offer, a question worth asking. There may also come a point when we have offered what we honestly can, and the next movement belongs to time or to the other person. Being able to recognize that point does not make it comfortable. because even after we have understood all of this, the phone is still on the counter. We still want to pick it up. A new phrase arrives while we are washing a plate, and for a moment it seems promising enough

to begin the whole conversation again. Insight does not always travel through us at the same speed. We may know that another message is unlikely to help and still feel an urgent wish to send it. This is the part that asks for patience. We are allowing an uncomfortable possibility to remain. Someone important to us may be thinking something unfair about us tonight. They may be telling the story in a way we would want to correct.

We have no direct access to that room, and imagination is quite capable of furnishing it with every response we fear. Before treating that imagined room as a place we have to enter, we might notice what we actually know. We know what was said. We know what we replied. Much of what has happened since exists only in our own reconstruction.

Perhaps the other person is still upset. Perhaps they have moved on to making dinner. We cannot settle the uncertainty by adding detail to an imagined conversation, however convincing the detail becomes. If there is a message pressing to be written, we can give it a place outside the exchange for a little while. Write it in a notebook, or somewhere it cannot be sent accidentally, and leave it there while you do something ordinary.

Later, read it as a piece of communication. Is there something in it the other person needs to know? Is there a responsibility you have finally become willing to acknowledge? If so, there may be a reason to return. If it is another attempt to obtain the same reassurance, you may already have offered the explanation it repeats. Then we can turn toward the feeling the message was trying to resolve. This is someone whose opinion matters to us. We wanted them to know

that we cared. It hurts that they may not know it right now. There is often a little sadness beneath the urgency, and we can be much gentler with sadness once we stop making it argue a case. You do not have to persuade yourself that their opinion is irrelevant. You can care about it and still recognize that you cannot finish its formation tonight. You can wish the conversation had gone differently and begin preparing your meal. These things can happen in the same life, at the same time. A feeling does not have to disappear before your hands are allowed to do something else. At first, the return to the evening may be partial. You cut a vegetable and think of the conversation.

You hear a sound outside and come back to the room for a moment. Then you drift again. There's no need to turn this into another task. You're failing. Each small return gives some of your attention back to the life that has been waiting alongside the difficulty. And that life is life is lost. larger than this one person's view.

There may be a friend who knows your care, through years of ordinary contact, someone with whom you do not have to begin from the beginning. Spending time with them can remind you how many experiences of being known are available in a human life. You can enjoy that company without asking them to judge the absent person or certify that you were right. Being received in the present has a value of its own. There is also what you know from the inside, imperfectly but honestly.

You know some of what you intended. You know where you were impatient and where you made a real effort. You can examine your conduct without making another person's verdict the condition of your next decent act. If you owe an apology, you can offer it. If you need rest, you can take it. Tomorrow, you can keep being someone willing to learn, even while tonight's misunderstanding remains unresolved. Over time, this changes the quality of a conversation.

When we are less afraid that a criticism will decide who we are, we can hear more of it. We can ask questions whose answers might surprise us. we can allow someone to finish a thought without rushing to protect ourselves from where it seems to be going. The freedom we were seeking through perfect explanation begins to make a more honest exchange possible. Sometimes in that space understanding comes,

the other person softens. We discover the sentence they had been trying to say and they discover something about us they had missed. Sometimes it comes much later through how we treat one another over the following weeks and sometimes a difference remains there's a sadness in that which deserves respect

especially when the relationship matters we can let ourselves feel the loss of the understanding we hoped for without spending every remaining hour trying to force its arrival So let us return one last time to the kitchen. There's a message now, a shorter one perhaps. It says that you hadn't realized how distant things had felt.

It says you care and that tonight you really do need to stay home. If you mean it, it suggests a time to talk. You read it once to make sure it is honest and you send it without knowing exactly what will come back. will come back. For a while, you still look toward the phone. The wish to be understood has not left you, and it needn. It belongs to the part of you that wants closeness, but you have given that wish what you can give it this evening, some truthful words, a willingness to hear, an opening through which another conversation could arrive.