☻ m's blog

Listening/ Not Listening

Coaching

I'm taking a Coaching class this week. My friend T at work took it and I respect T and the journey she is on, so it felt that there was something here for me.

I'm planning on some big changes in the next few years. I've had some big changes in the last year. Those changes excite me and also, I am a planner. This is a way to dream forward, while I am, by strategic choice, holding still. What do I want to put into my canoe for the journey ahead? What skills might I need?

Tonight's homework was two very juicy questions.

Where do you stop listening without even being aware that you have stopped?

I stop listening:

  1. When someone is complaining in a blame–oriented way about something I've heard before
  2. When someone is bragging overtly about themselves in a way I have heard before
  3. When I do not think I will be heard
  4. When I start to worry about how I am perceived by the other person
  5. When I begin to relate what that person is saying back to myself (particularly when negative 'am i like that too?')
  6. When I haven't had enough sleep
  7. When someone says something really interesting that sparks a mental connection for me
  8. When I feel I must defend someone or something, and so I stop listening and begin to plan my own response.
  9. When I am in physical pain
  10. When I am trying to prove myself to the other person

What are the circumstances when that happens?

I'm not sure about this question, but I'll maybe bucket the ones above:

  1. When I experience emotional discomfort like: judgement, fear, worry, or avoidance (like trying to avoid their negative energy)
  2. When I find it hard to put aside my physical needs (hungry, tired, in pain )
  3. When I am trying to manage the other person's perception of me
  4. When I find personally identify with what they are saying

If I was to reduce that to true essentials:

  1. When I sense a threat to myself physically, emotionally, or socially
  2. When I project myself onto the other person