I am sorry that what I said was not what you heard. You feel what I heard is not what you said. We are in the same conversation having different experiences. For everyone who’s unhappy with me right now for whatever reason, it is never my intent to hurt.  There are ways to have disagreements without mocking and being hateful. It’s always possible to have a mature, inclusive dialogue even when we have diverging opinions.  It keeps the lines of communication open.

If someone is mocking and hateful with me over anything, you can be sure I will not discuss that part of my life with them ever again.  If someone has made up their mind to be angry, nothing I can say will change anything. If I have written down how I feel as clearly as I can, and they do not understand, I have said all I could.  I never think I know everything, I just tell you what I am experiencing. Clearly, my experience is not always your experience.

The testing grounds for what we know is when we get in the emotion of disagreement.  What comes up for us as our initial response tells us what we truly understand and believe to be true.  If I carry this with me all day, it can eat me up. Just my experience. We hafta hold onto stuff as long as we have to. No praise or blame, just different strokes.

Not everyone has the same arguing style. Some people grew up in families that yelled and demeaned, so that is what they learned. That is the only way they know how to disagree. Others learned to steer clear until everyone was calm before discussing it. No one is right and no one is wrong.

We can learn a lot about ourselves when we realize the testing ground for what we truly understand and believe is how we react in the heat of emotion and argument.