What is understanding?

Hello and welcome back to part 3 of the TRUE Leaders Programme. So we are moving on now from trusting and reflecting to understanding. As with the other two parts, the first part of understanding is our understanding of understanding! So this is the what. This is about what does understanding means to us? And I would really like to encourage you to delve deep into a true understanding of what that is for you.

Like before, I have had a little bit of time to spend researching the word understanding and to me, there are two parts of this. There is the part around understanding the fact, comprehending things. Something about learning and knowing and for me that is more about a sort of comprehension and then there is the other part of it and that is about being understanding. So there is to understand something and to be understanding. And the being understanding is about awareness.

One of the definitions that I found was sympathetic awareness or tolerance. I like that because it is thinking about being aware of a situation, being aware of someone's position on something, and it is about being understanding of the things around us. So as with before, part one of this section is to get you to think about what understanding means to you. And which parts are important to you.

I know there have been times in my life where I have felt like I have needed to know more things. I have felt that yearn to understand more and it was important to recognise which of those things do I really need to understand? Which of those are important for me to understand and which of those things do I maybe not need to understand? Which of those things can I let go of in some way? (and we will come on to that a little bit later) But for now, I would like you to think about what does understanding mean to you?

Now as with before you may find it helpful to talk to other people about this. You may find it helpful to do a little bit of research. You may find it helpful to think of times where you have understood something or where you have been understanding or someone else has been understanding to you and think about what is it that defines that? What words can you pull out of that to define the richness of what understanding is for you?

The exercise today is all about understanding and what that means to you and like I say for me, there is something about understanding and there is something about being understanding and we will cover both of those as the heart of this section in the TRUE Leaders Programme.

So just a short and sweet one today; a little bit about understanding and in the next parts of this we will start thinking about understanding ourselves, understanding others, understanding situations. But for now, just think about what understanding is for you.

So, enjoy that and I will see you in the next part.