What have been some of your experience over the course of your life with speaking and feeling heard, seen and understood?
Edwin Rutsch
I generally like to speak. Don’t have too many challenges. However, I would like to be able to speak more from my felt experience. A challenge can be on how to identify and name the feelings.
In my family growing up, while the family was caring, deep personal listening was not a trait. So didn’t really feel heard deeply. Also clearly directed and focused attention on what I was saying, was not . So when I don’t feel people's focused attention when I am speaking.. I feel awkward and like not talking. It’s sort of, why bother.
I like being empathically heard in an empathy circle since I don’t have to wonder if the person is really paying attention. I have the full attention of the listener and that feels good.
Evan Magor
I have often felt unheard for most of my life, because no one around me had active listening skills or practice. I also feel that constantly living under the right/wrong judgment scheme makes it hard for anyone to be a truly good listener when they’re constantly judging.
I had always tried to stray away from judgment into better listening practices that I’d heard about, but things really changed once I discovered NVC which gave me the practical toolset I had been looking for my whole life.
Toby Yesterday
I have felt heard and seen a lot in NVC environments - empathy circles, for example, especially with other people who have extensive experience, such as NVC trainers.
It would be a lot easier to give examples of not feeling seen and heard.
When I studied and practiced Emotional Freedom Technique I also often had a feeling of being seen and heard.
I think it’s important to not share when one doesn’t feel trusting, to trust that intuition. For example how today I said in my check-in that I don’t feel comfortable sharing. Forcing myself to share when I don’t feel like it can actually cause dissassociation, whereas sharing the lack of comfort in sharing is it’s own information.
Zak Wear
I felt heard by one of my friends in college, across the hall in the dorm, his door was literally always open and it made me leave my door open. My current girlfriend made me feel heard while processing past traumas/weird relationships and without her, I wouldn’t be here! That said, most often in our culture we’re lead to believe validation/qualification of one’s experience is part of feeling heard, and I was often associating the two when in reality, just being heard stops before anything is qualified or validated. Therapy helped me understand this.
Sam Kifer
Growing up, I felt like I was a very sensitive and emotional kid who always had very intense reactions to things. As a result, the message I always got from the people around me was “why are you making such a big deal out of this?”, “why can’t you just let it go?” My intense emotions were rarely validated, so I tend to not speak up for what I am feeling or try to hide my reactions to things, especially when others may disagree.
Oddly enough, I can also sometimes be very opinionated and eager to get my word out about certain things. As a result, sometimes I may talk over others or be more concerned about what I am saying, than how others are receiving it. I also tend to repeat myself or give long winded responses, so I’d like to learn how to speak more succinctly.
Growing up, I also felt a lot of pressure to be funny or interesting or engaging when speaking. My older brother and several others in my family were very funny and good at making other people laugh. I felt this pressure to always be funny or engaging in order to be noticed and accepted. As a result, I am sometimes very shy and assume the listener is not interested in what I have to say unless it is funny or engaging in some way.