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Instant "Ahah!"s #2: Practice Active Listening --
Short-Circuiting An Angry Confrontation
Dr. Kathy McGuire, Director Week Three |
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Creative Edge Focusing E-Newsletter Weekly Support: Week Three
Each four weeks, we 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.
Several ideas for practicing Active Listening so you will have the skill ready when an angry confrontation comes your way:
1. You can go to Robert Frick's Do Focusing website's area on Becoming A Better Listener and go through his step-by-step teaching program. You can try out his Focusing Program while you are there! Neither is perfect, but they are interesting first steps.
2. Download the instructions from Focused Listening section at our website and free download of Chapter Three, Listening/Focusing Partnership Exchange found in links at top of this blog, and find a friend, colleague, or family member to try practicing with. Take turns, one as the Intuitive Focuser, one as the Focused Listener. This is not a big deal! Just find someone you feel comfortable with, someone, perhaps, has "intuitively" been a good listener.
5. You can purchase our Self-Help Package and immediately download the manual in English or Spanish, CDs and DVD with demonstration sessions you can watch mailed immediately. The DVD has four demonstration Listening/Focusing sessions you can watch, giving you an excellent grip on the actual skills.
6. You can also purchase an Introductory or three-session package of Listening/Focusing sessions with me under Coaching/Training Sessions, although there are many teachers less expensive than me!
7. You can join the Creative Edge e-support group from the icon on our home page and ask to practice using Reflection to someone's Focusing turn printed there. I'll give feedback
Bottom line: please take the plunge and try out Pure Reflection with someone you know, a computer program, a Trainer, just someone!
Radical Idea: Greet Anger With Empathy!!!!
Please Read The Examples Again
Get out your Mini-Manual and follow along with me or openInstant "Ahah!" #2, Active Listening on the CEF website ...In each of the demonstrations, somebody is really, really upset, and they are taking it out on somebody else. In fact, they come across as really, really angry.
When someone comes at you with anger, it is a natural response to feel attacked and to defend yourself, to fight back without a moment's thought.
However, it may help to reframe this anger as "upsetness." The person is feeling attacked or undermined or frustrated in some way, so they are attacking back. We can break this cycle of attack and defense if we can reframe the anger as "upsetness" and, stepping aside from reacting, simply reflect in an active listening way: "Wow! You are really upset!" "Wow! Something is really bothering you." "Wow! Something I'm doing is upsetting you." And, you can add, "Would you like to tell me more about that?", but, if that doesn't allow the person to calm down, just keep reflecting (maybe we can think of it as "deflecting" as well...trying to get the anger off of yourself so that you feel less threatened, less need to react with attack yourself).
The person who is angry, who is upset, is knocked off balance. As you know yourself, this kind of angry response doesn't feel good. It is not centered, but a reaction to the helplessness of feeling attacked or frustrated. So, by reflecting the person's words, you can help the person to get grounded again, to get centered.
Read the instructions and the examples and try to keep this immediate response of Active Listening in your back pocket, for emergency confrontations.
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. |
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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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These materials are offered purely as self-help skills. In providing them, Dr. McGuire is not engaged in rendering psychological, financial, legal, or other professional services. If expert assistance or counseling is needed, the services of a competent professional should be sought. | |
| Creative Edge Focusing (TM)
Dr. Kathy McGuire
Director | |
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