Good guesses are hammered gold.
In which I consider the crucial role good guesses make in tuning relationships
I have said emotions are pure gold (and sparkling diamonds). I have said they’re veins of glitter in the mine shaft of our inner experience. Getting into that mine shaft and looking for those veins, digging them out, is essential to tuning relationships.
And good guesses? They’re crafted from the gold and diamonds of emotions. Once you’ve dug those emotions out and turned them around in your palm, asking a few basic questions of them — what do these emotions tell me about me? Might my relational partner be feeling the same emotions? If so, why? — you can hammer them into something valuable.
Like a nice ring or bracelet or fancy watch. Or a tiara. Something you can hold onto and try out. See how it works.
By coming up with an experiment you’re willing to try. An experiment based on accurate data — emotions — and, importantly, on the good guess(es) you’ve crafted from those data.
Note I’m not saying we should notice our emotions and immediately act on them. I’m not saying I should think, “OH! I’m angry!” and then pummel my relational partner in self-righteous rage.
I’m saying we should notice our emotions and think about them. Psychodynamically. That is, in terms of what they teach us about how we fit with people, what our expectations of the world are, how those expectations color our very perceptions and the ways we interpret those perceptions. And how our relational partner is doing the very same thing — fitting unconsciously in patterned ways, unconsciously expecting certain things from the world, interpreting the world (unconsciously) through these entrenched filters.
Good guesses organize all these data into a formulation that makes sense. Again: The emotions themselves don’t necessarily make sense. It’s the thinking and the questioning and the organizing and, eventually, the guesses that make the sense.
And good guesses change the world.
How?
1) They do battle with our negative self-beliefs. By questioning them. By reframing them. By ultimately erasing them.
2) They organize emotional and relational data (which otherwise run rampant, or force us to run rampant, darting down dark, dank rabbit holes) into a formulation that makes sense to us.
3) Which is incredibly relieving. And, being relieved, we can think straight and creatively.
4) They evoke compassion, which is an extremely valuable position from which to consider and engage in relationships.
5) They form the basis for experiments, which can either completely, miraculously dissolve hurt and conflict or will hand us more data to fold into our next guess.
These beautiful trinkets — these emotional and relational data-based guesses — illuminate our experience in ways we would never see if we didn’t do the emotion work. They change our internal experience. They change the ways we interact with others. Which changes our relationships. For the better.
Does it matter that our guesses are correct? NO.
They can be totally off-base.
What matters is that they make enough sense to us that we’re flooded with relief and — very important — compassion for ourselves and others. That’s enough. Because relief and compassion automatically change the next relational steps we take.
But, if our guesses lead to an experiment, all the better.