After my last post I wanted to elaborate on the "active listening" trigger. Here's how you can use this (and save a couple hundred bucks at the C). Note that this is an AtlDave invention based upon our C sessions.
Whenever you hear yourself or your spouse saying one (or more) of the following.....
"Haven't you heard a thing I've said?" or "I don't thing you are hearing me" or "Why can't you get what I'm saying?"
This is the time to hold up a hand and say.....
"wait...we're in a miscommunication mode and need to stop and be more methodical...."
Now depending on the nature of the convo you can say....
"What I hear you saying to me is that you (fill in the blank)...is that correct?" -or- "(blah blah blah)" followed by "can you do me a favor and please tell me what you heard me say, I just want to make sure I'm communicating this to you correctly".
This is a very important thing to use because it addresses a fundamental problem caused by the way our brains work. Here's an example...
My 6yr old daughter saw our anniversary marked on the calendar and scribbled "dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum" in the square under it. I asked..."what do you mean by that?". She looked at me with a contemptuous, your-an-idiot look and said "geez dad, it's the wedding song". The wedding song was in her head as she wrote the "dum dum"s so of course, it seemed obvious to her and I seemed like a moron. All of us do this when we communicate but some are worse than others.
My W is terrible about this. After a C session, my W said - "I don't think the C understood me" and after I probed and asked her to explain herself, I discovered that I heard it the same way the C did. As I repeated back what I had heard my W say, my W said "oh my god, that's not at all what I was trying say".
It takes a certain degree of humility to say "what did I say" without accusing your audience of not hearing your point.
Anyway, I just thought I would share this helpful tidbit with folks.
Anywhere is walking distance if you have the time
-Steven Wright
