DailyJim: When we want others to listen to us but then we don’t speak

Hello everyone, welcome to another Daily Gym. Today is the episode 4, May 1st, 2024, Wednesday.

And I want to talk about something that happened earlier, but has happened a lot in my life, it seems. Where people say they want someone to listen to them, and then I ask them how they're feeling, and then they don't say.

I'll come up with a better title later, but it's this whole idea that, okay, so today a friend reached out and told me that somebody, you know, people in her life were not listening to her, and she was listening to what they were saying, but they weren't listening to her. And I asked how she was feeling. I asked what was going on, and she didn't really respond. She didn't give much information. And it reminded me of a time before two times before um but one where a friend said you know every time we talk you're always giving me paragraphs about how you're feeling you never ask me how i'm feeling and i was so confused so i look back in the chats and i had asked how she was feeling so many times but she would give me fine um good or not good and then i'd say what's going on? She said, I don't want to talk about it. So why did you say not good if you don't want to talk about it? Okay. It's fine. Well, it's not fine. I get frustrated, but it just, it confuses me more than anything. What is this? I want someone to hear me, but I don't want to say it. They're not listening to me, but I'm not talking. And sometimes it's thinking that the other person is not even asking them when the other person often might be asking, but has received kind of been stonewalled a few different times and therefore doesn't continue to ask over and over again. I don't know. It reminds me of a class I took once where, I'm sure I've said this on the show before, but where the teacher said, do you feel like people aren't listening to you? Do you feel like people aren't hearing you? And I got so pissed off because I had an ex that used to say, you're not listening to me or you're not hearing me. And so I was so annoyed, like, oh gosh, gosh, here's this teacher that's gonna tell me how bad of a listener I am. And then the teacher said, if you feel like people aren't hearing you, then you're not saying what you actually want to say. Holy shit, there you go. And so I wonder how many times people who don't feel like people are listening to them and don't feel like people are hearing them aren't saying what they want to say. Because I think sometimes we can say what we want to say, even if people don't want to hear it. People don't want me to say this say it anyways easier for me to say to other people i struggle with this too i think it can be really hard we you know i don't necessarily want to cause a fight with somebody who doesn't want to hear something. Maybe they really have said, I don't want to hear this, or can we stop talking about this? I want to end the conversation that happened as well today. I don't want to talk about this. And sometimes people say, I don't ever want to talk about this again. Can we just agree to disagree? Just let it go. Just move on. Da-da-da-da-da-da. Which is, can we just stop talking about this? But then I get so frustrated because sometimes later they go, but how are you actually? I'm like, you don't want me to say. hey, you told me to stop talking about this, but then you asked me to talk about it or you want me to give a different answer? I don't know. And so I think it can be hard.

I don't know. I think I can feel frustrated. I imagine other people might feel frustrated in wanting to say how we feel, wanting to say what's really going on with us and the other person telling us they don't want to hear it, but then kind of wanting to hear it it's these mixed messages i think that really can, can frustrate and confuse many of us at least me it's fine if somebody doesn't want to hear something from me but if they say that they don't want to hear it but then they kind of do or you know i ask somebody how they're feeling and they say they don't want to talk about it but then they later complain that nobody's asking how they're feeling i don't and not even nobody that That I'm not asking how they're feeling. And I just get so confused by these mixed messages. And I think sometimes these mixed messages come when people just really aren't that. When people maybe want to disconnect from how they're feeling. Or people want to push down or suppress or distance from some of the emotions that are happening in life.

It's when, you know, somebody says, you ask them, how are they? And they say, fine. And maybe they believe they're fine. Maybe they actually think they're fine. But you can tell that they're sad or you can tell that they're angry. You can tell that they're excited. Oh, I'm not excited. You know, I don't have, you know, I'm not looking forward to that event. Of course you are. It's written all over your face. Oh, no, no, I'm not. But I'm okay. And then when you don't have the event, they go, well, why didn't you invite me? It's because you said you didn't want to get invited. And now you're angry that I didn't invite you? You said, no, I don't really want to go. There's a lot of cultures, I think, that operate on this kind of, it's impolite to be honest. Oh, man. Would you like some more food? Some people say it's polite to say no, even if you want to have some more. Or it's polite to say yes, even if you don't want to have some more. Why can't we just be honest? why why do we have to spend all this time trying to read okay what does the corner of their eye mean when they turn their head in this slight direction when i ask this question does that mean well maybe i got it wrong and i'll find out uh two months later when they're pissed off at me because i disrespected them can we just use words can we please can we please change culture culture, so that human beings are allowed to say what's happening inside of our bodies so that we can have a deeper coordination with each other?

I am so tired of, frankly, I would say, little children, very young humans being much better at this than I would say many adults.

Because, I don't know, I think it's one of the most powerful skills we can have as a human being is to communicate internal states to somebody else. And i just think it's such a force for coordination and collaboration and conflict resolution, and we ban it in some cultural taboo type way not full bans but kind of yeah it's just a person you know person said i don't want to talk about this anymore i don't want to talk about this kind of stuff what do you want to talk about uh i don't know you know normal stuff what's normal stuff the weather would and again if people really don't want to talk some about something and i agree that it seems that their body really doesn't want to talk about it's fine i mean i i kind of want that alignment i'm not saying that people should do things that they don't want to do i just wish people were much more aware about what they actually want and what their body is saying and understanding the conflict that happens internally and being much more connected to that conflict, aware of the different things that are happening instead of that almost disconnect where they say.

Oh, you never ask me how I'm feeling. But when I ask, you never answer. And I ask a lot. What are you talking about I don't ask? It's just, maybe because they aren't aware of me asking or because they don't want to answer. I don't know what it is. I just think there's some disconnect between what people can be feeling and what they want to feel. And just in general i think sometimes we can become unaware of what's actually happening because there are certain things we want to happen even if they're not actually happening i don't know um as you can tell this is just kind of frustration because i think it plays out in so many aspects of our lives not just relationships but as it comes down to work and it comes down to freaking war how much of war is people being like this person disrespect me they never pay pay attention to you and they're like this person paid attention to you every day of the week and you ignored them and pushed them away so what are you talking about they're not paying attention to you oh they don't care about me but they're they literally showed up every single day of the week to give you food and take care of you oh no it's just a trick okay um maybe that's a different issue but this idea of really people saying you're not listening to me and then when you ask them to speak, they don't speak.

How am I supposed to listen? Am I supposed to put a stethoscope on your heart and try to listen to it that way? You probably don't want me to do that. There are, I would say, more invasive ways for me to try to listen to what's going on with you. But I think speaking is a way for people to hear themselves.

Even if nobody even if it seems nobody else is listening i think i think the people who say i think when we say what we actually want to say we hear ourselves and we actually think other people are hearing us and listening to us i think it's one of the fastest ways to think other people are listening to us is to listen to ourselves and and speak i think one of the easiest ways to listen is when somebody speaks clearly and precisely and openly because otherwise we have to read a lot of nebulous clues and I'm tired my voice is a little shot if you can't tell but you probably can because you're listening I would hope and I'm going to end because this is probably over 10 minutes and I keep doing that but talk to y'all soon tomorrow bye.