What happened?
I head to the beach to get a selfie to use on this website.
I’m under-nourished physically and emotionally.
I feel tired and cranky. Someone I love is telling me thoughts about a challenging problem that do not fit with my thoughts about what happened. When the person finishes speaking and without a pause, I begin to say what I think. The person doesn’t feel heard and says so. I am upset for being called out.
Right off the bat, I know that if my fundamental needs are not met—like food, rest, connection, or quiet to let feelings rise and pass, then I have a little chance of noticing rogue waves. (Rogue waves seem to appear out of nowhere and can knock you down.)
I (metaphorically) get toppled.
Like I say in the audio, in a harrumph, I fast walk to a favorite spot on the beach. My attitude is self-righteousness. I ignore that I’m upset and pretend I’m happy.
And I take this selfie.
I know. Not so flattering. (I forgot my sunglasses and the winds were about 25 knots sustained. But that’s not what stands out in this picture.) If ever you want to know what it looks like when someone asks, “How are you?” and you say, “I’m fine,” but you’re just pretending you’re peachy-keen. Guess what? They know you’re lying.
And, after I took the photograph and looked at it, I realized I was sitting on a sandbur!
I plucked it and then laughed until someone walking by asked me what was so funny. I felt like I had some little personal comedy going on. The laughter refreshed and relaxed me. Then I used Wonder Anew’s questions to unravel my discomfort.
In the audio, I say that I want to listen to understand the other’s position while hanging onto myself. That is hard and enriching work. Carl Rogers says that if I can be sensitive to and aware of my own feelings, then I am more likely to be able to do this when I relate with others.
This inner work is not easy because it means feeling pain and hurt. But it’s worth it and affects my response to these questions I ask myself when I listen to someone else.
Can I be strong enough as a person to be separate from another?
Can I be a sturdy respecter of my own feelings as well as another’s feelings?
Can I give the person the freedom to be? Or do I feel that the person should follow my advice, or remain somewhat dependent on me, or mold him or herself after me?
Can I let myself enter fully into the world of the person’s feelings and meanings and try to see these as the person does?
Can I step into the person’s private world so completely that I lose all desire to evaluate or judge it? Can I enter it so sensitively that I can move about in it freely, without trampling on meanings, which are precious to the person? (Carl Rogers)
I really care about this listening thing.
So maybe it’s a good thing that this #notreallylistening experience showed up for me to understand and admit that though I know I am a good listener, I also know that sometimes I’m not.
“In my relationships…I have found that it does not help, in the long run, to act as though I were something I am not. It does not help to act calm and pleasant when actually I am angry and critical. It does not help to act as though I know the answers when I do not. It does not help to act as though I were a loving person if actually, at the moment, I am hostile. It does not help for me to act as though I were full of assurance if actually I am frightened and unsure…I have not found it helpful or effective…to act in one way on the surface when I am experiencing something quite different underneath.” – Carl Rogers
xo Susan
Thank you for your vulnerable, brave and honest sharing here, Susan. Whew. It’s so tough to feel the emotions that come with situations like this. Your candid sharing of the experience through your audio, the selfie & the reflections is rich with wisdom. I recognize that stirred up state that rises up out of the seeds of depletion (when I’m tired or hungry or scared I have trouble showing up the way I want/need to). Thank you for the beautiful, bumpy, real journey from the heights of emotion to the grace that grounds when we settle back into our truth. It’s a privilege to witness your processing and progress as you seem to have worked this out in front of us here. You’ve started some wheels turning for me … we’ll see where the thoughts take me. Thank you for being so real and true, Susan. Keep shining your light!
Paula, oh gosh, you’re here. Thank you. And thank you for telling me that you also recognize the stirred up state born of depletion. It’s the season of too much to do and too many places to go, you know, keep going tired or not. That picture gave me one fine laugh attack (silver lining) about what happens when I don’t exercise self-care. I don’t like looking like that, or pretending, but most of all, I know see how a lack of self-care interferes with me being able to listen to another.