Communicating in your own way

What are you really being told

One of the most frustrating things in the world is when people don’t hear you, they don’t listen, your just not getting through.  And we get really wound up by it, that they are just not paying attention.  It is an interesting thing, and its been bothering me for a couple of days.  Then a thought came into my head. 

Our cat was very ill, really, really ill, and I just knew her was ill, but I didn’t now how I knew he was ill.   Someone said, but they can't talk to you. They can't tell you, can they?  I thought no he can’t tell me but yet he was telling me he was ill. 

Fortunately, he's okay now but it dawned on me that everything does communicate but sometimes we're so busy trying to make people understand what we're saying and how we're saying it and what we mean that we forget to actually look at how they're communicating, what they mean and what they're trying to tell us.

And that's when it goes badly wrong. I just think we need to just stop trying to make ourselves be heard so much and put a little bit more time into actually listening.  And I don't mean just listen, I mean actually trying to understand how someone else is communicating.  It'll be so unique, so, so unique.

How many times have we heard “that child's angry!”

That's your perception?

Watch.  Listen.  Is he angry? 

The child is communicating in the only way they know how.  They might not be able to explain an emotion, but they will be trying to show you, usually with a behaviour.

Anger Iceberg

But why has this come into my head this morning?   Because, I think, everything can communicate, but it communicates in its own way.  And if that's not your way, you may frustrated because you don't understand, obviously.  Or you can take a step back and actually look and listen.

So, the cat was really ill, and I knew he was ill because he wasn’t himself.  I had a bit of a fight with he vets but finally they took me seriously.  He is okay now.  How do I know is okay?  This morning when I woke up, I rolled over and on my pillow was half a mouse.  My instinct was to scream and shout but then I thought about it.  It was my cat’s way of saying “thank you”. 

Funny isn’t it.  Just look at things in a different way.  Put yourself to one side for a moment and look and listen to what someone is actually trying to tell you.