Her Ears Are Fine, She Just Hears What She Wants To

In our Free Store conversation on Tuesday morning we talked about the importance of seeking to understand people.  This is one of The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People that Stephen Covey refers to as "seek first to understand then to be understood."  We talked initially about the importance of a habit as something that we do regularly and repeatedly which over time comes to define our lives.  Sheila said that she used to clean her house every day after work which her kids thought was a bad habit which made us laugh.

We started the conversation by talking about what it takes to be a good listener.  Our friend Terrence said that respect is the main thing.  He said that we all want to be respected especially for something good.  At this point Donald jumped in and said that he didn't want to listen to people that called him names and made fun of him for reading his bible.  Our new friend Terry said that character is important because people have to trust us if they are going to open up and really talk to us.

At this point our friend Stephanie said that sometimes when you are listening to someone else you are really "thinking about what you are going to say next."  So we talked a bit about the different types of listening like ignoring, pretending to listen, selective listening.  I told the group that when my sister was little my mom took her to the doctor because she had a hearing problem.  After the check up the doctor said, "her ears are fine, she just hears what she wants to."  As I recall the diagnosis was the cure.

We talked about how genuine listening is empathic.  Empathy is like sympathy but a little different.  Sympathy is "feeling with" the other person where empathy is more about "entering into" and understanding the other person's feelings.  Our friend Terry said that to really listen to understand someone takes time.  Sheila said that it can be hard to understand somebody.  She told us about a guy that she had talked with and he ended up crying because nobody had ever listened to his story before.  She went on to say that people trust her because "they know I won't say nuthin to anybody else."

As the conversation moved toward a conclusion our friend Stephanie said "don't jump to conclusions" when you are listening to someone else.  At this George told us about his friend Kathy who died recently.  He said she drank and got beat up a lot but that he knew her as a good person and missed her.  He went on to say that in the past "I didn't care about nobody but me" and that "I was the devil hisself" which made us laugh.  He also said that "if you don't shed no tears you don't have a heart."    We teased George about crying while watching the sappy movies he likes and he didn't deny it which made us laugh.  Stephanie said that she would often pray "Lord break my heart for what breaks yours."