Friday, October 23, 2015

"Mom.... MOM.... MOM!!!"

There's a Healing Touch class called "Energetic Communication." It's a class where the practitioner learns how to listen, really listen, to the client in order to find out how to work with them. And one nugget of information I've carried with me since taking the class is this:

People will repeat themselves until they feel like you've heard and understood them.

If you've ever been talking to someone and they just keep retelling the same story, or keep hammering home a point, or using the same word or phrase over and over again, it can be a sign that they don't think you've heard them. This is never more true than with kids. It might mean that the person feels like no one is listening, or it might be that no one is actually listening.

At my church I'm lucky to be a part of a few different groups of women who meet to support each other and the community. But recently the actual work isn't getting done because several women keep talking. And talking. And talking. And we've responded by shortening meeting times, cutting them off, and just flat out not including them sometimes. What happens? They keep talking, louder, more often, and to more people. We stopped listening, and they kept talking.

So now we're trying to figure out how to start listening again. Because the point of being on this planet is to be with other people, and communicate with them, and create the world with them. I'm wondering if the email/text/tweet/Facebook culture is stunting our ability to listen to people. Or if we're so busy (as women, as people) trying to get stuff done that the quiet listening time has been preempted.

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