Well Wilma, you have done it again with your post All Conversations are not Equal in Intimacy. You have clearly explained how conversations work, how ’social integration’ is necessary and useful but very limiting when it comes to intimacy and deepening our shared understanding of each other.
Not only in our daily interactions with others, but here on this blog as well. When someone like Wilma shares intimately about her relationships with her daughters and her first husband, it creates the space for others to share intimately as well.
Our holiday in Vietnam! My daughter and I made it happen by intimate conversations.
Wow, I am excited by all the conversations that have sprung up around listening, making requests, right of refusal and questions.
What an awesome way to deal with these elements of this WomenLikeMe topic called ‘How to Create our World through Conversation’.
Ann-Marie and I have certainly had our hands full with this topic and its practices and we thank you all for your commenting, as it validates for us that this is not as simple as it seems.
I find it very exciting to finally see HOW I can now choose to manifest a great base camp by connecting intimately with my sponsors or HOW I can choose to ignore my lack of conversation skills and thus continue to go it alone and stay small.
It is useful to realize that through conversation;
- we make things happen
- we get through the day
- we sort out our relationships
Hi everyone. Thanks so much for sharing your observations and experiences with asking questions in response to Wilma’s post this week.
It was so cool to read that Peggy, armed with her questions was off to do a radio interview with her husband’s ex-wife, to talk about the relationship between ex-wives and step moms. A very real example of intimacy being present rather than distance. Wouldn’t it be great if all ex-relationships were like yours Peggy!
I noticed that several of your comments gave Wilma suggestions on how to improve her relationship with John’s parents. And with the exception of Megan, no one actually asked Wilma any questions to further their understanding of the situation. Questions like; what did you do about it, do they know you better now, is it still a problem???
Huummm.
John built this boat by asking questions.
When I first met John’s parents I expected at least some questions.
But I got none.
Not getting a single question made me feel really uneasy; it made me feel unwelcome, as if they did not care about me, as if I did not count.
Of course they cared but the fact that they never asked anything made it very hard for me to give them some information about the woman their son was living with.
How do you volunteer information about yourself when not invited by questions?
Thus they got to know very little about me.
So how can they relate to me when I am virtually a stranger to them?
How can we create any intimacy and personal relatedness when there is nothing to talk about other than the weather and the color of the blooming bougainvillea?
Hi everyone. Thanks for your thoughts on listening in response to Wilma’s post this week. It looks like Wilma has opened up a topic that has some interesting contradictions and many layers to peel back.
We listen every day, many of us are trained at it and do it for our work and yet Tess said similar to Joy who shared that; “only one person in my own life has been an active listener.”
Zeenat went on to say; “I’m still searching for that great listener.”
I’d love to hear more examples of how listening has made such a difference that, as Tess says, these people stand out “head and shoulders above the rest.” In these sharings of how listening has made a difference, we can be inspired by what is possible for all of us.
Robin, thank you for sharing how listening makes a difference for you. Your words revealed something that I’d never thought was possible:
Walking, talking and listening.
Listening is a very powerful skill.
I, as base camp benefit hugely from excellent listening skills as they create intimacy and a shared understanding with my sponsors. And listening ultimately allows for coordinating effective actions that make me fly.
I can finally confess that I can do something very well after having unraveled my struggle with requests.
I am very well trained in it professionally.
I also have the advantage that I love observing and observing is definitely part of listening.
I adore getting a handle on what is going on, I guess it also served me to become a perfect people pleaser.
I listen with my senses. I listen with my ears, my heart, my eyes, my smell and my intuition.
I listen with all of me and the information I gather that way is quite extensive and often unique.
Listening can make or break a relationship and being careless with our listening can have huge negative consequences.
No is an acceptable response to a request
Thanks guys for playing with us and sharing your examples with making requests and your issues with saying and hearing ‘no’.
I think we probably can identify with Tess and her picking up her husbands shoes. As she shared
For the first 5 years of our marriage I requested and commanded he pick up his shoes. Of course he didn’t. So I picked them up for him but I griped loudly the entire time.
A few years went by and I no longer griped but I had the victim “attitude.” Yet I kept picking them up.
Then after another few years I noticed one day I was picking up his shoes and did it matter of factly. No longer upset by his not taking care of his shoes.
Then one day I became grateful that I had the opportunity to pick up his shoes and I became grateful that he was in my life.
The bottom line for me concerning the shoes was “Do I want to be happy or right?”
I decided happy!
Ann-Marie, George mentioned in last week's post as the master of requests, guide dog Georgie and Wilma.
Writing about making requests has proven hard and really shows me I am severely lacking in this skill.
Last week’s post took me several attempts and this one has taken a long time too.
To be honest, I wish I had kept my mouth shut about making requests. All they do is confuse me and just writing about them makes me cranky.
I know that solving this request issue is valuable as I do see that I need this skill if I want to spread my wings and yet my aversion to tackle this issue is huge.
Requests for me are big scary beasts.
After all my aborted attempts to write sensibly about this topic, I have now decided to let all my emotional stuff around requests simmer for a while to see if I can unravel this issue one small step at the time. So this time I am going for a semantic approach.
Mulling over making a request? Just do it!
Who’s Jumping?
This week Wilma & I had a lengthy chat about living life differently, about making sustainable change to have our lives completely work for us.
And once again we came back to and talked about the chasm that exists between knowing what to do and actually taking the steps to do it, to get it done.
During our conversation we spoke about the comments that you guys are leaving on the blog.
The openness, the depth of knowledge, the courage and most of all the expressions of love and support for each other are extraordinary.
One thing’s for sure, we are never ever alone in our concerns and fears about life.
A clear request.
This little baby bird in its nest beside our front door is totally dependant on others for her survival and she knows it. There is no doubt about that when you see this beak and its clear request for food!
She goes for it, no hesitation.
When MY survival is at stake, I am no different from that baby bird.
When I really need to, I can make those requests too.
Thank goodness I have not been in many desperate situations; however in the few times that I have had my back up against the wall, I was very capable of making requests.
When push came to shove, believe you me I asked. I asked for things I never imagined I could ever ask for.
BUT … and this is the killer, as soon as the crisis was over I would immediately forgo my ability to make requests. I’d return as quickly as I could to my independence and I’d try to forget the instance as fast as I possibly could.
In my judgment, having to ask is horrible, horrible, horrible.
I HATE it!
I cringe when I think back on those times when I was dependant on others, I cringe about how helpless and powerless I felt.
And I vouch never to go there again, not if I can help it.
Thus requests have had an unjustifiably negative reputation in my book.
And it could have been so different.
Instead I could have looked back on those times that I needed to make requests, with gratitude and joy. I could have looked at the fact that my requests were indeed granted and that there were people who granted them so lovingly.
I never realized that requests are a superb safety net and are a tremendous way of accessing resources that could make my life amazing beyond belief.
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