December 1: I was recently with a group of people and noticed how often we began our own trains of conversation before the previous person was finished--unwittingly, we were being totally disrespectful in our quest to be heard. Today's listening lesson--allow someone to finish their entire story/conversation, pause for at least one second, and then begin your response. We'll call this FULL LISTENING. If you try this in a group, you may not ever get to respond because everyone will jump in ahead of you. Be okay with that--model full listening anyway.
01 December 2011
The Advent Calendar of Listening--Day 1
Listening is a gift we often forget to give ourselves. We gain everything when we listen: we learn, we get renewed, we grow, we show love and respect to others, we show ourselves a true friend. This advent calendar will give us a way to practice listening each day leading up to our celebration of the birth of Jesus. If we got rid of S.T.U.F.F. in November as a gift to ourselves, what better way to continue feeding our strength than by learning about the gift (to ourselves) of listening?
