Day Three

Another bad night's sleep. And another exhausting start to the day. I began by finishing arranging next Sunday's service, then I went to Lowestoft to arrange a funeral.

The pain is bearable at the moment, But I need to get through the rest of this month to see how I manage.

In the absence of anything else to write I thought I would write about the difference between hearing and listening. In the song, "The Sound of Silence" Paul Simon wrote the line:

"People hearing without listening",

and I used to think he had it the wrong way round, but my experiences over the years made me realise that he was right.

People hear when I talk to them - it's hard not to hear. But they don't necessarily listen. Everyone has filters when hearing, and depending on what those filters are, they don't listen to the meaning behind the words.

I find that, usually, instead of listening, there is a tendency to either try to find a solution, or to offer reassurances. Neither help. I don't need people to offer me solutions, and I don't need reassuring. I'm not sure that I need to be heard, or listened to, but it would be refreshingly different.

And yet, it is virtuallly impossible to find anyone who will listen. This is why I am reluctant to arrange for counselling. Counsellors like to fix things (people) and that becomes their priority. This prevents them from listening. If the Methodist Church wants to waste it's money on 12 counselling sessions that's up to them, but until I recover, I don't want to add yet another thing to my diary. The solution-focussed approach means that everyone is treated the same. I have a "supervision" session coming up soon: I never found those helpful and each time I was assigned a new supervisor I spent the first session apologising to them., because I knew they would not find me easy to work with, and they would start to feel like they couldn't do the job properly. "It's not you; it's me", was what I would always say. Last year I had 10 online coaching sessions. I liked the man doing the coaching, but as each session came around I had to spend time trying to come up with something to say so that he wouldn't be wasting his time. And it has always seemed like I have to do the extra work to make these supervisors, coaches and counsellors feel good about themselves. My life would be less stressed if people stopped offering me solutions that don't work for me and maybe just listen.