What if listening is a skill?

He sits in front of me, talking, endlessly. After a while I don’t hear him, I just see the lips moving. I’ve heard this before, or almost the same, and I feel trapped. I look at him, and my thoughts are wandering ofd. I wait for my moment, and at an inhalation, I take the chance to rapidly saying something.

When I talk he doesn’t look at me. His eyes are elsewhere, and I know that in a second or so he will pick up the newspaper, and then say that he can listen to me and read the paper at the same time.

I cry inside, letting go of my words, and I know that another family dinner has passed.
And there is no one really listening. Me neither.

This happened for years. I asked him innumerable times to look me in the eyes when I talked to him, but he just couldn’t. Often he cut me off when I was in the middle of something. I got so used to being interrupted that I started talking in half sentences, without even noticing it. (A friend said: You never say a whole sentence, and he is interrupting you all the time).

I think that was a lesson which helped me to understand the value of listening. You can hear so much if you are really listening.

Well now you could say that I was a lousy listener when it came to my husband. And yes, I was. I was tired of the monologues, because it was like I was listening to him pouring out his thoughts on me. It was almost like I could have replaced myself with a paper doll, that could make nods, every second minute, just to show him that someone was listening.

I my youth I was engaged in politics and different associations, I wanted to (and actually still want) create a better, more fair world. But it took me only a couple of years to give that up, because I noticed that few was actually listening. And still today when I hear a discussion between politician I see this lack of interest in the other… It’s like many says: ”Listen to me, to my ideas, hear me out”… So what I witness is a series of monologues… and me… who has striven for connection for so long… just get tired.

So I practice listening. I am still not a superhero when it comes to listening, but I am getting better.
So try to do this:

In a conversation, focus listening.
Ask questions which encourages the other person to talk. And then listen again.
If you want to show that you really have listened, you could say something like this:
”I heard you say this and this…. is that a correct interpretation of what you said? If not, please fill me in.

What would happen is you become a better listener?
How can you listen to your self? Name some ways you could listen carefully to yourself? What voices do you hear?

Words from your love warrior