When I was growing up I had tremendous trouble understanding how people felt. I would say things and do things without realising that others could be upset by this. My view was that if I was just stating facts, then clearly I wasn't trying to be hurtful or upsetting to anyone, I wasn't trying to upset anyone, I was just stating facts (or, in some cases facts from my perspective of how I read the evidence/situation - not that I thought about it in that way back then).
A few examples of my lack of understanding that what I say could upset others. In school as a teenager a girl asked me out. My response to her was that I thought she was ugly and so wouldn't want to go out with her. She slapped me... I couldn't understand why she would be upset by me, from my perspective I felt people go out with people they find attractive, so if I didn't find her attractive then I wasn't going to want to go out with her and I thought she would want to know the reason I was saying no, rather than just being told no.
I would often walk into rooms where people had been arguing and carry on as if nothing had been going on, completely unaware of the fact those in the room are perhaps angry or uncomfortable whilst I am in the room. I wouldn't notice when people were attracted to me, and likewise wouldn't notice when people weren't attracted to me. So if I wanted to ask someone out I would just do it, when it would have been more helpful to just do it with those that were likely to be more receptive, and it would have been more helpful to notice people that were flirting with me, rather than being blind to this.
When I was about 14 I began to experiment with some ideas. I used to read lots of books on subjects like auras, spirits, ghosts, etc. I wondered whether it would be possible to use hypnosis to hallucinate auras around people as a visual colour representation of the emotion that person was experiencing.
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| Chichester Hypnotherapist Dan Jones Aged 14 |
Like today one problem I have always had is my obsessiveness around subjects I am interested in, so if I was interested in a subject I would talk about just that subject with whoever wouldn't walk away or tell me to shut up. I wouldn't notice that people were bored of listening to me, or that people were getting angry with me constantly talking about my interests with them.
So seeing auras around people allowed me to begin to notice emotions others were experiencing. My belief about how it was all working was that although I wasn't very good at reading emotions I assumed that my unconscious mind would take in all the information and would recognise the patterns of behaviour associated with someone being bored, or being angry, or annoyed, or anxious, etc. I felt that although to me I couldn't notice any difference, there must be a difference, perhaps such a small difference that I can't detect it, but maybe my unconscious could.
This turned out to be correct, and very useful. By the time I was approaching 16 I was much better at reading emotions by noticing what colours where around people. As time went on I also began to learn about micro-expressions, and learn to notice minimal cues, and taught myself as much as I could about noticing these things for myself, rather than just letting my unconscious do all the work. I still make lots of mistakes, but when I can get 'in the zone' I can be more efficient and effective and noticing what is going on for others.
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