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Instant "Ahah!"s #2: Active Listening --
Empathy for Anger
Dr. Kathy McGuire, Director Week Two |
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Creative Edge Focusing E-Newsletter Weekly Support: Week Two
Our e-newsletter, Instant "Ahah!"s, is your weekly reminder to Print, Pause, and Practice. Each four weeks, we will practice one Instant "Ahah!,", one Relaxation Exercise, and one Getting A Felt Sense Exercise. Our purpose:Helping you incorporate Listening and Focusing into your everyday life.
This month: From Instant "Ahah!" Mini-Manual, p. 7, #2.Active Listening: Short-Circuiting An Angry Confrontation.
Radical Idea: Greet Anger With Empathy!!!!
As I've gone through the week, I've realized how radical this idea and how worth saying again: "An angry person is a hurting person. Try responding with empathic understanding (Active Listening) instead of attacking back."
I guess I have become an expert on anger, hurt, and empathy because I am a person who can become really, really angry when I feel betrayed or otherwise blindsided by those that I trust. I've come to some understanding about this "personality style" by studying the Enneagram. Of the nine styles, I am an 8: The Challenger, The Boss. "How does an 8 Enneagram cross the river? She jumps in and starts swimming upstream."
8s are great managers and bosses, but they can also scare people with their anger, assertiveness, bluntness. As an 8, I don't really know how to "play games," to be indirect. Give me directness, even anger, anytime! Let me know where you are coming from. Don't hide or seem to go behind my back. You can imagine the vicious cycle for 8 bosses: they get angry because others are being indirect, seeming to hide, going behind their back --- and their anger leads the others to become more indirect, more hidden.
Anyway, from a lifetime of experience, I can tell you that the angry 8 is just a hurting child underneath. While the 8 can look terribly strong and take on any battle, this strong front takes a toll. Like anyone else, the angry 8 responds to empathic understanding (see Enneagram links).
Read through the examples in Instant "Ahah!" Mini-Manual #2: Active Listening again. What if the husband had attacked back when his wife came at him with anger: "Shut up! You can't imagine what my day has been like." Now, two people with their hackles up, attack and attack back (until one of them can respond with empathy: "Okay, I get it. You're saying you had a really bad day and are needing some empathy and understanding."(you can download complete chapters on the Interpersonal Focusing Protocol here, from the links at top of page, English and Spanish.
Practice Active Listening In Non-Stressful Situations
Of course, in order to respond with Active Listening in an emergency, you'll want to practice it in less stressful situations until it can become an automatic response. You can do this through our Self-Help Manual and Demonstration DVD. And you can also learned Active (or Empathic or Focused) Listening as part of a Listening/Focusing Level l class. See Resources for teachers below
Self Help Package
To really learn about Reflection, read Focused Listening at Creative Edge Focusing (TM). To begin practice in a serious way, purchase The Self Help Package, a manual,CDs, and a DVD with four Listening/Focusing Sessions you can study. The manual will help you to find at least one other, and, hopefully, a small group with whom you can start a Focusing Community, supporting each other as you practice Listening and Focusing.
E-Support Group
If you haven't, also use the sidebar icon at Creative Edge Focusing to join the e-support group so you can share your experiences, ask questions, and participate in demonstrations.
Classes and Workshops
You can find classes in Listening/Focusing Partnership, by phone, individually, locally, in many languages, for differing costs, in the listing of Certified Focusing Professionals at The Focusing Institute. Ruth Hirsch, CE Focusing Coordinator, teaches frequent classes by teleconference, as does Ann Weiser Cornell. Agnes Rodriguez, CE Focusing Coordinator, teaches by phone in English and Spanish, individually, for very low cost.
Other Weekly Reminders: Relaxation and Felt Sensing Exercises
Later in the week, you will receive two additional e-reminders: Relaxation and Focusing, taken from the Complete Focusing Instruction download available when you join the e-support group (and the audio CD Intuitive Focusing Instructions).
The Relaxation Exercise for this four weeks is Relaxation #2, p.4: The Beach, a guided imagery practice. The Felt Sense Exercise is #2, p. 9, "From the Bottom Up," starting with a "felt sense" of your toe and moving up to find the "inside" of the center of your body. |
Print, Pause, and Ponder
 When each edition arrives, immediately PRINT it out for reference every day, all week long.
Then, every day, PAUSE to take 10-20 minutes to practice the Pre-Focusing relaxation exercise and, once or more per week, take time to PONDER at the Creative Edge using the Pre-Focusing "Getting A Felt Sense" exercise.Of course, the e-reminders will give you an immediate opportunity to practice.
At Creative Edge Focusing, if you haven't yet, immediately download the Instant "Ahah!"s Mini-Manual, all ten easy immediate applications for home and work.Keep it handy for weekly practice of one of the ten applications. If you can't use the Sidebar E-Newsletter subscribe to download it, email me and I'll send you the PDF file.
You can also immediately download the Complete Focusing Instructions (Pre-Focusing and Focusing Practice), which we will also use each week, while signing up for our Creative Edge Focusing e-support list. Of course, you can immediately unsubscribe if you want.
On this e-support list, you can ask your questions, see demonstrations of Intuitive Focusing, Focused Listening, Interpersonal Focusing, and Collaborative Edge Decision Making (CEDM)and actually try these skills out yourself with Dr. McGuire's guidance. You can network with others trying to spread Listening and Focusing to other audiences and explore our Certification Programs.
If you purchase The Self-Help Package multi-media package, instead of just reading, you can listen to the Pre-Focusing and Focusing Instructions directly with Dr. McGuire on audio CD and watch Listening/Focusing demonstrations on the DVD-R. In the Spanish version of the manual, Focusing En Comunidad, you will find many of the Relaxation and Focusing Exercises in Spanish.
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| About Creative Edge Focusing (TM)
Mission: bring Core Skills of Intuitive Focusing and Focused Listening, and The Creative Edge Pyramid of applications from individual to interpersonal to organizational, to all audiences throughout the world.
Dr. Kathy McGuire, Director
Location: Beaver Lake in Rogers, AR
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Dr. Kathy McGuire
Director | |
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