Please bear with me as I indulge in a moment. After last week’s post, I was genuinely surprised by not only the insightful words people shared, but also by the sheer number of people who read the post. So consider this my small attempt to share my heartfelt thanks. And know if you ever read something you do or don’t like, please feel free to tell me. I enjoy hearing all sorts of opinions. Seriously…I do! If you think something stinks, tell me. I may not agree with you, but I’ll listen.
That said, I thought I would talk this week about listening.
What?
Just teasing.
Listening seems like such a simple thing to do, right? But, that all depends on what you’re listening to and your willingness to really hear the message. Do you ever do that selective-type of listening? C’mon…never? You’ve never tuned out a teacher in a lackluster class? You’ve never tuned out your significant other during a conversation you would have rather skipped? You’ve never left the TV on while doing something else? Never? Bull pucky! Everybody falls victim to not listening. But in all fairness, not hearing a message is easy to do. Many times messages are missed by distractions, or picked apart to hear only what you want to, or are presented in such a boring way we become disengaged. If you honestly take a moment to really think about how you listen, you’ll more than likely concede it’s hard to hear something that doesn’t jive with what you want. Listening to the whole message, the intended message, is sometimes the most difficult thing to do. But I would argue that not listening can be even more damaging than the message’s original intension, can lead to wasted time, and can diminish personal growth.
And how is it, in this age of instant communication, I’m claiming people don’t listen? I know, I know, it seems ridiculous. I just this very minute read this idea out loud, heard myself, and did a Diff’rent Strokes, “What you talkin’ bout, Katie?” Nowadays, finding information is as simple as “Google-ing it.” If you want to talk to someone you have a plethora of means at your disposal. You can email. You can IM. You can phone. Or you can go totally old school and write/send a letter via snail mail. But here’s the thing: With all this communicating going on, sometimes at warp speed, I guarantee at one time or another we don’t fully listen because we are either 1) protecting ourselves from something that will hurt; 2) are on information overload; or 3) are so entrenched in a 30-second-sound-bite world that we can’t decipher a good message unless it’s singing, dancing, and has a shiny red bow (or in other words, we simply don’t make the time).
And we also don’t take the time to consider that engaging in this unproductive, poor listening behavior can do more damage than we even realize. Without fully listening, we don’t learn; we don’t grow. Not listening to what’s really being said keeps us in a stagnant place. By really listening and understanding what messages are telling you, you can decide for yourself how to react; how to move; how to become engaged. Bottom line: knowledge is power. And why not be in the know, rather than the dark.
I, for one, have found I live better in the know; in the light rather than the dark. My personal history has taught me that I don’t do well in a stagnant place. At some point I get the itch to move. Maybe it’s because I have been fortunate enough (and I use that term purposely) to go through so much loss already. From my perspective, the idea of not pushing myself forward, of not learning, of not being totally honest to the person I am and want to be, means I’m wasting the life experience. And I don’t want my last thoughts to be, “Man, I wish I would have…” I guess it’s more of a live for today type of philosophy. I’ve listened to myself long enough to know this works for me.
And this brings me to my honest non-listening moments that lead to last week’s post. Last week I shared the scenario I was going through with one of my Sunday Boyfriends, and his inability to share. Now I’m not trying to beat him up, nor should you. I’m sure there are a whole slew of reasons why he chose to be silent. The one thing I’ve come to accept; the reasons are his, not mine. I have decided (because I do have control over my own decisions) to not let whatever his reasons are, diminish the value of what his stories meant to me at the time they were received. I’ve also decided not to overthink what his reasons are anymore. I can’t do anything about it anyway, so the energy would be wasted.
But, what I didn’t share in last week’s post was a message this SB did share with me. Months after my revel, in one of those antidotal exchanges, he said he “didn’t want to let our friendship get away from him again, but he wasn’t very good at it.” At the time, I only focused on the fact I heard back from him. Hooray! But I wasn’t paying attention, was I? And why not? Well, I fell victim to selectively listening. Had I been honest with what he was telling me, that he wasn’t a good friend, maybe I would have let go of the hope he would be honoring my truth. But I wasn’t listening because what I wanted, a friendship with deeper connections, was something he was telling me he couldn’t provide. And I was protecting myself from this truth because the idea of him not being a good friend after all the years of missing him was too painful to consider. But by not listening, I set myself up to get hurt more than had I been paying full attention. Funny how that works, uh?
Hey, hey…no worries. I’m a big girl. Sure, there’s a sting. But I’m not walking around thinking I have all the answers, or usurping my part in all of this. I’m okay with saying I made a mistake and wasn’t fully listening. So I fell on my face…so what? I tried. I reached out, made myself vulnerable, and tried to make a deeper connection. I can dust myself off and learn from this. I will always see his stories as a great gift. Silence won’t tarnish their significance to me. If he ever does want to share, I’ll be ready to truly listen. But if he doesn’t…well I’ll be truly listening, too.
After last week’s post I heard from my Email SB, my East Coast SB, my Gay SB, my High School SB, and my West Coast SB. All reached out to see if I was okay. Am I one lucky girl or what?! Here are these great men, these great friends, being there for me and reminding me that I do have deeper connections. Yep. I am lucky…
The message I hope you take out of all of this? Falling on your face in the light takes more guts than sitting it out in the dark. Just be sure your ears are open and you have a few Sunday Boyfriends to back you up in case you fall down.
Here’s hoping more of us are willing to risk being clumsy…
Until next week, stay comfy…
If you are looking for more SB information, check us out at our blog:
http://www.Sundayboyfriend@blogspot.com
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http://www.facebook.com/pages/Sunday-Boyfriend/20305680958
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