Navigating Change

Debi Levine, MS, LMFT

Why Listening is So Important

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According to Michael P. Nichols, Ph.D., few motives in human experience are as powerful as the yearning to be understood. Being listened to means that we are taken seriously, that our ideas and feelings are known, and ultimately, that what we have to say matters. I completely agree…

The yearning to be listened to and understood is a desire to escape our separateness and bridge the space that divides us. We reach out and try to overcome that separateness by revealing what’s on our minds and in our hearts, hoping for understanding. Getting that understanding should be simple, but it isn’t. We have all experienced the hurt of not being listened to, not being heard, not understood.

The essence of good listening is empathy, which can be achieved only by suspending our preoccupation with ourselves and entering into the experience of the other person. Part intuition and part effort, it is the stuff of human connection.

A listener’s empathy — understanding what we are trying to say and showing it — builds a bond of understanding, linking us to someone who understands and cares and thus confirming that our feelings are recognizable and legitimate. The power of empathic listening is the power to transform relationships. When deeply felt but unexpressed feelings take shape in words that are shared and come back clarified, the result is a reassuring sense of being understood, and a grateful feeling of shared humanness with the one who understands.

If listening strengthens our relationships by cementing our connection with another, it also fortifies our sense of self. In the presence of a receptive listener, we are able to clarify what we think and discover what we feel. Thus, in giving an account of our experience to someone who listens, we are better able to listen to ourselves. Our lives are coauthored in dialogue.

Listening is so basic that we take it for granted. Unfortunately, most of us think of ourselves as better listeners than we are.

Take this Listening Skills Test provided by Psychology Today!

http://psychologytoday.tests.psychtests.com/take_test.php?idRegTest=1605

Reference:
Nichols, M. P. (1995). The Lost Art of Listening: How Learning to Listen Can Improve Relationships. The Guilford Press.

Make the Right Decision? OR Make the Decision Right?

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So many people fret over making the right decision about some option or choice in their lives, sometimes to the point of excess. Yes, we need to exercise caution and use sound wisdom in making those important decisions in life, such as who we select to be our mate, where we want to live and work, or a house we want to purchase with hard-earned money. But when we go over-the-top with excessive worry and anxiety, debating each and every decision in our lives, we can ultimately rob ourselves of valuable time that we could be using to LIVE our lives! We over-think and thus fill our lives with much unnecessary stress and fear. In the end this can make us sick, and, very miserable and unhappy. Not at all the positive and hopeful life we envisioned!

The following link shares a great blog post that speaks to this dilemma we all sometimes face.

http://www.dailygood.org/story/501/don-t-make-the-right-decision-make-the-decision-right-adam-grant/

“Don’t make the right decision; make the decision right.” ~ Ellen Langer

“You’ll face plenty of win-win choices in your life. The quality of the decision you make will be determined not by picking the right one, but by the actions you take post-decision to make the most of it.” And, if your first decision turns out to be less than ideal, you can make another decision!! Keep moving forward…

Stress Happens

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Seems that eveyone I have talked with lately is feeling totally overwhelmed. They call it stress. Some of it is just the normal stuff we all expect, but don’t necessarily like — kid with a runny nose, another vet bill for the dog, taxes going up, no raise again this year… Yet other stressors seem almost senseless – riduculous, even. And these folks do really try to take steps to minimize the impact of the stressors they exprerience, or at least modify the way they handle them. But alas, they report, it seems to be relentless at the moment… We conclude that perhaps the world is not very friendly right now…

Stress is defined as any change that you must adapt to in our ever changing world. In particular, stress is any demand (force, pressure, and strain) placed on the body and the body’s reaction to it. Stress is experienced by everyone who is living, working, and breathing at this very moment. (That includes you and me!) It is a fact of life you cannot avoid. Stress, itself, ranges in intensity from the negative extreme of being in physical danger to the joy of completing a desired goal. All stress is not bad. However, it is important to identify how you respond to stressful events. This will determine the impact that these experiences have on your life.

stress

Assess your current stressors and explore ways that you respond to them.

  1. Generate a list of current events that produce stress in your life.
    (i.e., moved to new location, work or school demands, balancing priorities, job loss or promotion, political turmoil)
  2. Brainstorm how you cope with stressful experiences. Assess if you have a healthy or unhealthy coping style.

For example:

Healthy Coping Styles v/s Unhealthy Coping Styles

– exercise v/s alcohol or drug use
– down time for self-care v/s avoidance of event
– balancing work and play v/s procrastination
– time management-initiate schedule v/s overeating

After identifying stressors and coping styles, you can begin to modify your behavior.

  1. Be aware of your physiological and emotional reaction to stress
  2. Recognize what you can change (your reactions to stress, internal thoughts)
  3. Utilize healthy coping skills
  4. Incorporate good coping skills into your repertoire, increasing your options
  5. Practice healthy coping skills daily even when intense stress is not present (this prepares you for times when you may feel overwhelmed)

coping with stress