understanding confusion

understanding confusion

for Pan, Fenua, Jenny, Lisa & Amy, Shawn, Meredith, Sunanda, and probably others… with gratitude

this story begins a few months back with brené brown (actually it begins much further back as the illustration shows!). she asked a question in an online course about how it might feel if you share something personal and vulnerable with someone and feel understood. i hesitated about the word ‘understood,’ because it felt overly rational. so, of course, i looked it up in the dictionary: 

Middle English, from Old English understandan, from under + standan to stand.

understanding then isn’t a rational process at all. being understood might then be construed as standing under someone; being in their place; supporting them. understanding then is about connection, in a grounded whole body way. understanding is about embodiment, but i’m getting ahead of myself.

recently several people have shared with me that I am confusing to them. discussing this with my therapist, we wondered about the definition of confusion, since we had talked about the definition of understanding. of course, the dictionary brought it together:

confused: unable to understand.

so then confusion might be dis-connection. but the etymology points in a different direction:

Middle English from Latin confusio(n-), from the verb confounder ‘mingle together’.

confusion then seems to imply mixing it up, which is a powerful antidote to rigidity, separateness and binary thinking. and might even help to bring understanding. indeed, there are old traditions about the fool, the court jester, turning the world upside down in order to right it. perhaps you don’t understand something until you mingle with the thing you never knew.

finally, this brings me to some recent lessons in relationality. my ongoing somatica training and body-mind centering practices converge with the experience of embodiment. what might it mean for me and my interactions with others if i can remember that there is constant communication between my cells? my experience of embodiment is coming-to-know—under-standing?—who and what i come in contact with, as i move through the world in ways that might seem confusing to others, but hopefully grows awareness and encourages connection.