If you have children a spouse or have parents you have heard about selective hearing or listening, right?
When your trying to get your children to listen and they are distracted by friends, phones, video games, TV, sports etc. often you must turn off what is distracting and ask for eye contact from them. We take away things so we can get there full attention, we demand eye contact and then when its their turn to talk we often don't give them the same demanded attention.
Does this sound familiar?
One of the things Zak and I talked about in the hospital was how he felt about his childhood and what I could have done different as a parent and what I can do now to improve. The collective answer was," I wish I could have convinced you the first time I wanted to be heard." It seems it was a debate and took time to get me to listen and even longer to hear.
I asked," do I do better now than when you were younger?"
Zak expressed, "Yes mom you do." Your still very hard to convince, your mind is set on something and that's hard to get past. Your not as open minded to new things as I would like you to be.
Hmmm.......................................taking time to really hear this and allow myself to learn.
I thought about this a lot in the hospital. I asked my other children the same question and they all said the same thing. Your a strong woman with a strong mind and convincing you to look at another way isn't easy. We wanted you to hear our ideas the first time and instead we had to work hard to debate and convince you our way was worth looking at. They expressed I did eventually listen good but it took too long for me to HEAR.
I had to look at myself good and hard and take these lessons to heart in many areas of my life. I learned in many situations to guard myself and guard what I heard for fear it would hold me back and instead I held myself back by not listening.
I have spent many years learning to listen , then hear, putting together information and letting it often sit and resignate inside until I had a solid perception. Often my first response inside was defense. Learning who I am and why I felt defensive was a learning process, much of it I learned in Life coaching and a ton of it I learned from my diehard children reminding me openly they wanted to be heard.
I love to hear what people have to say now, I really stop to look them in they eye and hear the passion in their story.
Put aside your own perception so you can see a different direction!
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