I Had an Interesting Session Recently
A client was working a mildly stressful situation. She just found out she was pregnant and called her parents to tell them the news. Her father kept worrying about worst case scenarios and it stressed her a bit.
In the process of working through her Judge-Your-Neighbor Worksheet on her father, we discovered this underlying belief, “If I openly listen, I’ll buy into it.”
This Is What Was Making Her Feel So Defensive Talking to her Dad
And without that thought she found she would have had no stress during the conversation.
So she turned it around and found that it was just as true that, “If I openly listen, I won’t buy into it.” What she discovered was that “listening openly” and “buying into” were two different things. They had just gotten melded together in her mind.
In reality, she could listen all she wanted to her dad’s concerns without buying into them. His concerns were his. Seeing them this way allowed her to see how much he cared about her instead. The content of his speech became very secondary.
And Another Turnaround Was Insightful
Another turnaround was, “If I don’t listen openly, I’ll buy into it.” By not listening, the mind ends up throwing out the baby (dad) with the bathwater (his worries). Then the mind flips and picks up dad again, not wanting to reject him, but grabs the bathwater again too. It’s all or nothing thinking in that defensive, closed state of mind.
An open mind, on the other hand, is an engaged mind, and is much less likely to get caught up in all or nothing thinking. It takes what it likes, and leaves the rest.
Baby. No bathwater. Freedom!
Have a great weekend,
Todd
“Honest communication begins with you communicating with yourself.” — Byron Katie, I Need Your Love, Is That True?
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