I’ve recently been confronted, again, with one of the lessons that hits me over and over again on my journey. I learn it, and then I forget it, and then I have to learn it all over again. That lesson is this: There will be many times when I think I know what you’re thinking without you having told me about it. Acting on that knowledge without confirming it by asking you, or simply walking around believing that what I think you’re thinking is what you’re actually thinking, is a bad idea. Someone (probably my sponsor) put it to me this way early in my recovery process: “Brendon, you suck at reading minds. You’d probably be happier if you stopped trying.”

I grew up in an environment where it seemed crucially important to know what people (particularly my mom) were thinking and feeling at all times. Emotional fluency wasn’t really a thing, and although we could talk about things that happened, or plans, or abstract ideas, or current events, talking about feelings wasn’t really something that I got good at. So, I learned to try to just figure out what you were feeling instead of having a conversation about it.

The positive spin on this would be that I was practicing using my discernment and intuition. And, yeah, maybe, but that’s some pretty generous benefit of the doubt. Really, I was trying to read people’s minds, and figure out what you were feeling (and why) without actually having a conversation with you about it.

And, I had some early—not successes, exactly, but things that could be mistaken for successes if you squint and don’t pay too much attention. One of the those “successes” is that I learned that if I think someone (particularly a woman, given the environment I grew up in) is feeling badly, they almost certainly are. Now, that sounds like a good thing, and it is—as far as it goes. But, I took it too far. For a while, I believed that I knew what you were feeling, and it wasn’t too far a jump from that to believe that I knew why you were feeling that.

I’ve learned, though, that although I may know that someone is feeling badly, I can easily be mistaken about whether it’s anger or sadness or disappointment or shame or regret. I’ve learned that my initial thoughts about why you’re feeling the way you are tend to be biased in both self-blaming self-centeredness and obliviousness about the consequences of my actions, and so they’re not reliable at all. And, I’ve learned that although if I think you’re feeling badly you almost certainly are, the converse is not true—i.e., if you are feeling badly I’m not guaranteed to notice.

Now, my mind will give me all sorts of reasons as to why this time will be different, and I really will get it right, or I should go along with the mind-reading anyway:

• “I know them well enough to be sure!” Yeah, probably not. My wife and I have been together for over 25 years, and we’re still getting to know one another. Further, we’ve both been changing and growing that whole time, so the thing that I learned about her 10 years ago (or 20, or 3) might not be true anymore.
• “They’ve told me this thing before!” Yes, but people and situations change. It might be a good idea to lead off the conversation with acknowledging what has been said before and ask for confirmation in some way, but just because someone felt this way a few months or years ago doesn’t mean they’re going to feel the same way now.
• “It’s obvious what they’re feeling!” Again, probably not. As I mentioned above, I used to believe that I was really good at knowing what other people were feeling. I’m usually pretty good at knowing the valence (i.e., direction: positive or negative) and intensity of your feelings, but what the actual feeling is? Nah, not so much. Brené Brown talks in Atlas of the Heart about how many feelings present similarly, and that was a lesson that I had to, shall we say, take to heart.
• “But what If they’re not going to tell me what they’re really feeling?” Well, that’s their choice. I’m not necessarily entitled to know what someone else is feeling, regardless of the nature of my relationship with them.

So, what’s the answer? For me, it’s two-fold. First, I need to recognize when I’m trying to read someone’s mind, and lovingly talk myself through the process of remembering that I don’t actually know what’s going on. Second, I need to ask the other person. Empathetically, lovingly, curiously ask. It’s harder to do than it is to explain, but I find that I like the results better than the results of mind-reading.