Hiya people,
I want you to help me. Before we get into the detail, here is a little background.
Two years ago after I miscarried, I started seeing a therapist. Miscarriage and lots of other health issues had put a toll on my mental health. I wanted to know when would it end. Ha!I wish future was readable! I remember, those nights were scary and those days were gloomy.
Every day I would talk to my husband, I would try to express a little to him. I was afraid.
What if he is in pain too?
What if he too is emotionally shaken up?
Family doctor referred me to a psychiatrist. I went to her with a hope that there would be some magic. It wasn’t a magic, but it felt different. I remember, she uttered only few lines during our conversation, and allowed me to speak up. I had a wider variety of emotions piled up. There was anger, frustration, helplessness, anxiety and an unsuccessful attempt to run away from what I was facing. But then, you can’t run away from life! Though I couldn’t continued going to her sessions, she had been a great help. And if you ask me what did she do, she just ‘Listened‘: Without sympathy, without judgement, without any assumption, she listened to me attentively.
And I felt like a part of me healed..
A part of me which was broken up in pieces due to the drama happening in my life. With time, I understood the importance of being a good listener. Husband has always been a great support to me with his amazing listening skills. We talk a lot now about our emotions, insecurities, feelings.
In between those conversation, I sometimes jump in to say something. I know that it’s wrong, but it somehow happens. Sometimes it makes me wonder, we have spent years writing and reading, but did we ever learn that we should be effective listener too? How can we learn not to listen to answer, but listen to understand?
Empathetic listening is something we all should learn, but we never thought of doing so. With the growing amount of media influence we have on our mind (remember Arnab Goswami’s debade?), we somehow love to interrupt someone in between, and jump in with our thought process. While it can make us a good debater, will it make us a good human being?
Stephen Coven has written in his book ‘The 7 effects of highly effective people‘ that a better way to show someone that you love them and care for them is by listening to them. You may say that you care about and appreciate me. I desperately want to believe that. But how can you appreciate me when you don’t even understand me? All I have is your words, and I can’t trust words!
Listening is an art we develop over time.
So, here is the thing: I have been trying to be a good listener for the last couple of days, but out of 20 conversations I have with my husband, 25 happen when I am unconscious. Struggling to learn this art over few weeks I have understood that it won’t work by just reminding myself once in the morning. There has to be constant nagging from someone. So, I here is something I will do for the next 30 days, and I invite you to join me in learning this art.
I have changed my phone wallpaper to an image which says ‘Become a really good listener’(Sorry for the bad image!). I have done the same for my computer wall paper too. It’s like a constant reminder whenever I see my phone or laptop. So, suppose I get a call. Before I receive it, I see my wallpaper saying ‘Become a good listener’ and I try to listen attentively. Also, since I see my phone throughout the day, it kinda reminds me to follow this advice.
No, I haven’t been doing it for long. Today is Tuesday, and I put this wallpaper this morning. They say that it takes 21 days to make a habit. So, here I am asking you guys to join me in ‘Transformational Tuesday’ to learn the art of listening. Put a picture of something similar on your phone or on your mirror, or wallet or anywhere you see it frequently. And let’s learn this habit for the next 30 days!
I will set up a reminder to let you know how I am doing on my Instagram and Facebook after every 10 days or a week. You can post your progress too in the comment section asking your friends to join, or it doesn’t sound good to you, don’t share!
Just do it.
Let’s learn to be understanding. Together we can be a better human being!!
‘Transformational Tuesday’ is an innovative campaign I bet ! An effective idea indeed to change the habit I guess and I already change my default windows wallpaper with a “good listener” wallpaper in my computer 😀 I hope this to be a result producing one ! Well listening is a golden habits one should follow in every kind of interaction and controlling the usual trait of interrupting needs practice indeed. I am practicing it for not be a perfect but maybe to be a little acceptable also 🙂 Sometime I do listen to people and try to understand them but you know, I am not good at expressing my empathy or what I felt and my silence mostly misunderstood which portrays me as a cold hearted person hahaha…. even I say people should understand the silence, they should listen to the silence also because it got a sweet hymn in itself 🙂
I appreciate your fight against miscarriage and health issues and wishing you all the strength to bounce back and I hope you are already on track.Bad Memories do haunts and it always maybe but you see, good memories are equally painful. Just keep the faith, whatever happens He does it for good 🙂 We had been to what you had been. It sometime really tough to keep that faith intact but afterall we need to carry on for someday maybe the storm will over …who could know…. 🙂
Thankyou so much 🙂