Once upon a time a story about how to listen

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  The last entry  ended with a request that you imagine telling someone  how to get from the nearest. Shopping mall to your house.   What were they doing at the mall?—just checking out another going out of business sale at a former big name catalog store?   No matter...the reason for the request wills become clear in a few paragraphs so hold your horses.   Hold your horses?  How many people  have horses/d—well Sidna...but other than her how many people  have them and how do you hold one?  How many  little sayings do we assume  everyone knows the meanings of and Howe often do we use them?  for example, I doubt whether someone  growing. Up in Los Angeles would  understand  when you ended a phone call by saying...hey I’ve got a lot of hay down...In a later episode of this blog I’ll have a little fun with all the little sayings, however for now it’s enough to say we all have these  little gems and their interpretation  is far from universal.  When it comes to understanding each other a bit better ther4e is more than one way to skin a cat—oh who can name three most popular way of skinning a cat?  Okay. Point proven—let’s move ahead.   

  
  

  Once upon a time...

  
  

  If you really want to gain an understanding  of someone else’s experiences the most efficient  way is not to randomly ask questions like how old are you? What do you do for a living? And Where were you born?  If your conversation mate answers these correctly you  then interpret and assume some things about them and it’s assumptions that have gotten. Us off track in most cases already.  So in human relations terms this  is like seeing someone in a hole and helping them by handing them a shovel.  

  
  

  In seeking peace and joy through listening it is  good to ask others to tell you a story.  The person speaking gets to  create the culture to encompass the story, introduce and develop the characters and the journey or problem the characters face, the outcome and most importantly the teller relays in an implicit or explicit  way the moral, the lesson, the value that the story is told to reveal.  You see you need to let people direct their own “once upon a time in order to really learn and you have to be prepared to listen in a way that makes sense.  Now...of course hearing a story and listening. To one are not the same.  Be prepared to help the teller along by understand their strengths as a storyteller.  Howe do you find those?  

  Oh remember. The mall?  Now here’s where that comes into play.  

  
  

  You can  learn so much just by knowing how someone describes  an action.  for instance, if someone tells you “I leave the mall and turn south down  Main Street pass four traffic lights and drive about a half mile, then you so south for  a quarter mile and turn right going only three blocks to your destination—that’s a different story from Go south of the mall toward Burger King, stay. On that rtoad until you see the Last chance lounge on your left—you’ll see the big blue neon sign on their. Roof.  Then. Turn the same way you would turn if you were going to church and follow that road until you get to that place where we used to buy candy after school.  Now you’ll see a big green house up on your side of the car and we are the next house after that.   

  
  

  You see, these two stories wound up in the same place but are different  and if you don’t know that  the people are using  different parts of their memory to  construct. The story then you may have a difficult  time really understanding.  However once you understand. How someone constructs a story and which parts of their brain they are comfortable with, you are going o be able to connect  so much easier.  Now there are some “learning and memory” terms for the types of  facts in the stories above and the dominant  ways  people use them—(semantic, and eepisodic memory and processing) however I won’t go down the rabbit hole here.  the point is we need to appreciate that some people use. A computer to type out ideas and some people use spray paint  or even a dance or a song and it’s a worthwhile investment on eeveryone’s part to  find each other’s storytelling sweetspots.  

  for me seeking peace and joy in relationships and. In gaining understanding relies on exploring such things and experimenting with using  different ways of expressing ideas to see which ways connect with which people.  

  
  

  Speaking of connecting—that’s  the topic for tomorrow and will wrap up this little series.  

  
  

  For today—it is the solstice  and the day of of maximum sunlight in the Northern Hemisphere.  We will never have this much. Sunshine for another year so be sure to get out and share some  with the world.