How is it that people - even the people who are meant to know us really well - sometimes manage to say, or do, exactly the wrong thing?

Without intending to, a friend or a family member makes a comment, or does some little thing, that seems innocuous enough on the surface, but somehow manages to drive us mad.

And it feels as if they were trying to be aggravating. Because really, how could anyone know you that well and not understand the things that drive you mad??


…It can be easy to forget that, however close you are to someone, they don’t have a street map to your mind. They can’t see or hear what goes on in your head, any more than you can ever know what’s going on in theirs (even if you may think you have a pretty good idea).

In fact: we don’t even have a street map to our own minds! And however self-aware we may be, there are still going to be times when we struggle to understand whats going on in our own heads.

That being the case - how can we expect our friends, or parents, or siblings, or teachers to understand what’s going on in there any better than we do?


Here at hoozyu, we often talk about people as being like icebergs. It’s a simple, yet effective, way of visualising what we’re talking about:

Who you are in terms of how you usually act, and how others therefore see you, is represented by the tip of the iceberg. It’s the visible part. How you appear to other people.

But the tip of the iceberg is the smallest section!

Beneath that, lies all the other parts of who you are - how you fundamentally see the world, how you expect other people to behave, how you want to be treated

Tip of the iceberg = how others see me; beneath the surface = how I actually need to be treated;

The problem is that, just like the inner workings of your mind, all this stuff is invisible to other people - even the people who know you best.

What they see is the tip of the iceberg, but the parts of you that are reacting when they say or do the ‘wrong thing’ are the hidden depths - the bit they have no clue about!


That’s why we use hoozyu - our aim is to give people a way of understanding their own hidden needs, so that they in turn can understand (and explain!) why they react badly to certain behaviours or attitudes in other people.

We can’t change who we are - and we shouldn’t want to! - but we can work towards being less reactive and more understanding of one another.

Sound good to you?