A Light Bulb Moment
I mentioned in my January 9th post that my husband and I are facilitating an eight-week marriage class. It's been quite an adventure, since we are participants in the interactive course as well as facilitators.
One major area the materials focus on is communication patterns. In completing our homework the past several weeks, my husband and I have had numerous discussions about how he and I communicate, and the things about our conversation that "work" as well as the things that don't "work". This focus has helped us a lot.
All this thinking, talking, and evaluating (we have to complete inventories as part of our homework) has certainly increased my awareness of how I communicate. I realize that I have some significant areas of weakness. But I haven't understood just what to do about them.
ENTER, THE "TEACHER".
You've probably heard the saying "when the student is ready, the teacher will come". Each time I would hear this saying I cognitively understood its meaning, but it never really resonnated with me.
But this morning, I got it! I was in a restaurant with a dear, long-time friend whom I haven't seen in months, and we were catching up on what's been happening. The subject of my family's new puppy came up, and he asked what kind of dog we got. When I realized he knew nothing about our newest family member, I began to give a several sentence "blurb" about when we got the puppy, how we found out about him, and how little I had previously known about the border collie half of him (the other half is lab).
Because of the relaxed nature of our friendship, he interrupted me, saying, "All I asked was what breed he is." That's when the light bulb went on! I realized that I have a long-standing habit of doing that. When people ask me a question about something, and then I realize they have little information about the subject, I start giving my Cliff Notes overview, just "knowing" they'll appreciate the extra context for the answer they asked for. But he didn't. He just wanted to know what breed the dog was.
We laughed, and then continued having an enjoyable meal. But my friend was, in that moment, my teacher. I had been seeking understanding of my conversational weaknesses, and he had just highlighted one. When I got home I sent him an email thanking him for the assist. Another good friend provided similar feedback in the past several days about a different area of weakness, and she was also, in that instance, my teacher.
I believe that because this student is "ready", my teachers are showing up all around me, providing me with much-needed illumination and direction. As a result, I have already committed to practice two new conversational behaviors:
One major area the materials focus on is communication patterns. In completing our homework the past several weeks, my husband and I have had numerous discussions about how he and I communicate, and the things about our conversation that "work" as well as the things that don't "work". This focus has helped us a lot.
All this thinking, talking, and evaluating (we have to complete inventories as part of our homework) has certainly increased my awareness of how I communicate. I realize that I have some significant areas of weakness. But I haven't understood just what to do about them.
ENTER, THE "TEACHER".
You've probably heard the saying "when the student is ready, the teacher will come". Each time I would hear this saying I cognitively understood its meaning, but it never really resonnated with me.
But this morning, I got it! I was in a restaurant with a dear, long-time friend whom I haven't seen in months, and we were catching up on what's been happening. The subject of my family's new puppy came up, and he asked what kind of dog we got. When I realized he knew nothing about our newest family member, I began to give a several sentence "blurb" about when we got the puppy, how we found out about him, and how little I had previously known about the border collie half of him (the other half is lab).
Because of the relaxed nature of our friendship, he interrupted me, saying, "All I asked was what breed he is." That's when the light bulb went on! I realized that I have a long-standing habit of doing that. When people ask me a question about something, and then I realize they have little information about the subject, I start giving my Cliff Notes overview, just "knowing" they'll appreciate the extra context for the answer they asked for. But he didn't. He just wanted to know what breed the dog was.
We laughed, and then continued having an enjoyable meal. But my friend was, in that moment, my teacher. I had been seeking understanding of my conversational weaknesses, and he had just highlighted one. When I got home I sent him an email thanking him for the assist. Another good friend provided similar feedback in the past several days about a different area of weakness, and she was also, in that instance, my teacher.
I believe that because this student is "ready", my teachers are showing up all around me, providing me with much-needed illumination and direction. As a result, I have already committed to practice two new conversational behaviors:
- decelerating sooner as I approach those conversational four-way stop signs, giving others more freedom to enter traffic
- giving concise, direct answers to inquiries, then pausing to let the other person indicate a desire for more information.
And in the future, when others lessons present, I will seek to apply them too. So to all my potential teachers, thank you, in advance.
posted by Linda at
2:35 PM
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