Quotes Found on Divorce Busting (III)

[TimeHeals]

how do i know when my answers to the above questions are due to 'mind-reading'?

Not asking you to read minds. I gave you an example for a reason.

In the example, the child says "I wish mom were here".

Now, you could argue with the child and say, "Mom cannot be here" and invalidate what the child is trying to tell you which is "I wish she were [I miss mom]", or you could validate "I know you do, and I wish she were too", and the child sees you understand. You have communicated.

The idea is to listen more objectively. People will tell you all of the time how they feel indirectly. If you try to fix them or argue or reason, you basically invalidate them. If you are really listening, you will see they are just trying to tell you how they feel however.

You have to stop making your whole experience about YOU for a minute, and just listen to them. If you filter everything people say through your own experience, you miss a lot, and if you aren't paying attention because you are too focused on you, that doesn't work either.

It isn't that hard, but it takes practice. Con men can do it. So can you

i'm usually the one who tries to logically reason with the other person. so this is something i really need to work on.

There you go. You can do it. Just stop trying to fix things, teach, and reason Let people share their experiences without trying to influence them.

Don't feel too badly about doing what you have done. I don't have any statistics on-hand, but I routinely get reasoning and how-to-fix that responses from people when I tell them how I feel, so I would say active listening isn't the norm. It's the exception.

Be exceptional