There is such a thing as being too understanding. It’s a lovely quality, but it can hurt you too
Being a kind and understanding person is a lovely quality and huge strength, but it can lead you into trouble when it is overplayed.
Particularly if it means that you are so busy being understanding of everybody else, that you neglect your own rights and needs.
Most of the time, being kind and understanding means that you can get on with people. You can see why they might be the way that they are or why they act the way they do, and you can be forgiving. Maybe you can let things slide more than other people can.
“They can’t help it. They don’t mean to. They were just having a stressful day. We all do things we don’t mean sometimes.”
With most people, this will be greatly appreciated. Good people do thoughtless things sometimes. All of us might speak more sharply than we mean to occasionally. Having the capacity to be understanding means that you might not come down on people too harshly, and a way forward can be found.
However, it can lead us into trouble when we are so understanding that it prevents us from holding our own boundaries. For example, when someone is repeatedly doing things that cause us pain or that we don’t like, but we are so good at being understanding that we might completely let them off from taking any accountability or responsibility at all.
And, maybe we are so focused on being understanding of their issues that we put the fact that we are hurt or affected by it away somewhere. We swallow it, we say it doesn’t matter. We wipe the slate clean.
Sometimes, if it goes really far, we can be hesitant to even say that what someone is doing is bothering us because we are so concerned about hurting them by speaking up.
And that’s a problem. Because it means that no matter what someone does, we will excuse it. No matter how much it bothers us, we won’t hold our ground and say “This is not OK.”
The thing I would want to say about this is: no matter somebody’s reasons, you are always allowed to have a problem with their behaviour. You can state that a behaviour is not OK, or that it is bothering you, without writing that person off as a human being.
“I don’t like what you are doing, and it is bothering me” is not the same as “I don’t like you, you steaming cloud of guff.”
You can always comment on the behaviour.
The reason this is so important, in my eyes, is that you can still be understanding while you challenge or highlight behaviour. And, if you can do that, this means you might actually get to be understanding without having your own boundaries trampled on. An example I use with my kids a lot:
“I completely understand that you were angry, and I can see why. It is still not OK to hit.”
Understanding and firm. Together. Not one or the other.
P.S. Not that I get it right all the time, of course.
Ted Bradshaw
Cognitive Behavioural Therapist and Coach
My name is Ted Bradshaw (@cbtted on Instagram and TikTok) and my main aim is to make mental health and anxiety in particular much easier to understand. I am a Cognitive Behavioural Therapist accredited by the BABCP and have been working in this area for over 15 years. I am an honorary Assistant Professor of Psychological Therapies at the University of Nottingham and I also work as a coach, accredited by the International Coaching Federation to PCC level. On my first day of training as a therapist, I was immediately annoyed. The things I was learning seemed so useful, and I was confused as to why I had never been taught any of this before, because it would have been so useful. For me, it seemed ridiculous that we would wait until people feel really bad before we offer them any information or insight into how anxiety or how a mind works. That is what led me to look into coaching and it is also why I spend a good deal of my time writing about and making short videos on lots of different aspects of mental health and anxiety in particular. As a parent, I have also found that what I know about anxiety has been so useful to me when dealing with my own children, so a lot of my focus is upon parents understanding anxiety for their children, too. These days in my 1:1 work with enduring mental health issues such as depression. OCD or PTSD, and I also work with people who might not be sure whether it is therapy they need but who are looking to improve something, like confidence or self-esteem. Finally, I also run workshops for schools and businesses on all of these subjects, including how to help an anxious child, good mental health in the workplace and more. You can find me across most social media platforms @cbtted, on Instagram and TikTok in particular.
