What Are Your Captions?

Everyone you meet is living a story you know nothing about.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned as a psychologist, it’s that everyone we meet is living a story we know nothing about. We all have “captions” that aren’t visible to most people. When we hold this in mind, it can change the way we move through the world and engage with the people we meet.

This week, my Monday was the Mondayest of Mondays. They say bad things happen in threes. My day kicked off at 6 a.m. with me picking a lock to rescue my kids, whom I had accidentally locked in a bedroom. By nine o’clock, I was blindsided by news of an unexpected, disheartening family medical issue. At three o’clock, a close friend took her last breath in hospice. She declined quickly over the weekend, so we never got a final goodbye. These were my captions.

As a clinician, I’m adept and well-practiced at keeping my personal “stuff” from spilling into my professional life. But as a human being, I still feel it. Deeply. As I processed the weight of Monday, I was cognizant that most people around me had no idea what I was trying to untangle in my head and my heart. I don’t hide behind a mask, but I am boundaried.

We all have invisible captions. They impact how we react, work, process, listen, and communicate. It’s far easier to have a charitable interpretation of someone’s behavior when we can stop and appreciate there is something driving it that we may not fully see or understand.

With enough context, most human behavior makes sense. We’ve all got something going on—the colleague who seems distant, the stranger in line at Trader Joe’s. So, the next time you find yourself thinking, “What is their deal?” consider their captions. Extend grace. Ask: What may be happening that I don’t see? This is the heart of empathy.

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I use the following video clip in my many of my EQ trainings. I’ve watched it over and over, and it gets me in the gut each time I see it. Will you do yourself a favor and take a few minutes to watch it, too?

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