How often would you get a response like this via instant messaging or even face to face? Not often I’d think. Irrespective of how we feel, we typically just give a generic “I’m fine, how are you” kind of response. There are a ton of reasons for this ranging from our own insecurities , the fact that it’s easier to say I’m fine, rather than unpacking and telling the other person truly how we feel, to our upbringing, the culture’s we adopt and our behavioural training.
So, how are you truly doing today? Are you truly okay or are you in fact not 100% okay, perhaps in need of some help, a shoulder to lean on?
The point I’m driving home is that we aren’t very honest when it comes to our feelings. Of course it’s easier to ignore the problem, ’cause it might just disappear. The problem with that kind of thinking, is that the problem will only escalate and will never disappear.
Let’s forget about an honest response to the person asking “how are you?” How about we first become honest with ourselves and acknowledge where we’re at, to ourselves!
Life coaches and counselors teach a technique whereby at the end of each day you take 5 minutes to asses your day.
- Draw a dividing line down the center of an A4 page
- On the top of the page write positive and negative
- List all the highlights of your day in either of the columns. Be honest
This process helps you in ‘wrapping up’ your thoughts and thought processes of the day and brings them to a conclusion. One of the biggest problems we have is that we don’t think our thoughts through, we just go day in and day out with open ended thoughts without any closure. It is important to bring our thought processes to a conclusion.
The next time someone asks you “how are you?”, hopefully your response will be an honest one, and not just the ‘expected’ one.