When It's Time to Speak

Knowing when to listen and knowing when to speak may be the most important lessons you learn in a relationship. In the prequel to this hub, When It's Time to Listen, I talked about the idea that "it is not about me, it's about you" when you are truly hearing another person.

I have feelings too. I am still human. All I want is to be loved, for myself and for my talent.
~ Marilyn Monroe

When the Japanese mend broken objects, they aggrandize the damage by filling the cracks with gold. They believe that when something's suffered damage and has a history it becomes more beautiful. ~ Barbara Bloom

Never complain. Never explain. ~ Katharine Hepburn

After you know the feelings behind the words being spoken or the place the speaker is in when they are speaking, you have a much better chance to respond from your heart to their heart and make that all-important emotional connection.

Connection

The ones you love, like you, need to be appreciated and considered not only for what they can do, but for who they are. It is one thing to say "I love you" and quite another to tell them why you do.

"I love that you get cold when it’s seventy-one degrees out.
I love that it takes you an hour and a half to order a sandwich.
I love that you get a little crinkle above your nose when you’re lookin’ at me like I’m nuts.
I love that after I spend the day with you, I can still smell your perfume on my clothes.
And I love that you are the last person I want to talk to before I go to sleep at night....when you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible." ~ When Harry Met Sally

Whenever I feel I can't say why I like someone or what they do, I think of how easy it is tell them what I don't like sometimes and it helps me realize that seeing and knowing someone is a choice---If you see them as flawed or perfect----Either way, you are right.

I used to think that love was overwhelming approval. You meet someone and you just like everything about them---their look, their voice, their thoughts---you can't get enough of them, you talk into the night, you find every excuse to be around them and they can do no wrong. When you commit to the relationship, one or the other experiences disappointment or pain or fear or anger or loneliness.

That, of course, is to be expected, but when the feeling takes expression in words directed at you, that all-important, overwhelming approval, like the rain forests of Brazil, is in danger of extinction because of the way you react to what you hear.

Most people in a relationship, when they hear words coming at them fueled by the negative feelings above, hear blame or shame or criticism and the illusion is shattered.

Do you remember the first time you felt that disillusionment? One minute the one you loved was angelic---you could kiss the ground they walked on and in the next minute you wondered who was this stranger saying these things to you.

I admit to being a participant in this experience---I wish I could tell you that I passed with flying colors, but alas I am not even sure there is a grade low enough for my performance.

I wish I could tell you that I was not fooled---that I knew it was a kind of test---that I knew the unkind words directed my way were only a tortured, unintended expression of the pain, disappointment or fear of abandonment that had attacked the heart of my loved one.

I wish I could tell you that I responded like my poem below and the overwhelming mutual approval stood firm against the bulldozers and fires that had been lurking in the insecurity of my subconscious, waiting to be unleashed to claim the rare and precious acreage left in the world.

Maybe the sheer awesomeness of our love was to blame---maybe I had built the pedestal so high that the potential energy of its collapse was too great and the assault was too much for it. Whatever the reason, the forest shuddered, the pedestal tipped and we were left shaking our heads and searching for the paradise lost of our unconditional love.

In my single poem hub "When Love Loves You Back," I describe what happened and end with the hopeful and saving truth:

Love can take all you have and be hungry

but sometimes love wants nothing

finding you in places you'd forgotten.

When you're lost

love can love you back

Let me just say that I have learned to accept that perfect love resides in imperfect people. I have learned that when imperfections push you into withdrawal or to attack, that both are wrong. When confronted with the sparks caused by iron sharpening iron, I know that they will pass and we will both be better off when it is done.

How you see, how you hear, how you interpret determines to a great extent the outcome.

Love is the happiness that results from giving your heart away

Seeking nothing in return

It looks beyond the faults

And sees the good and the beautiful,

And by the act of loving, creates much of what it loves

The best defense in the battle for overwhelming and unconditional approval or love is the positive affirmations you say to yourself about yourself and the one you love. When you have listened with all your heart and your mind and it is time to speak, speak with a tender and forgiving heart.....

If You Speak.....


If you speak from Disappointment
I will shower you with Affirming Words

If you speak from Pain
I will hold you close and say “I Love You”

If you speak from Anger
I will say “I Love it when Your Eyes Spark like That”

If you speak from Fear
I will hold you and say “I will Never Leave You”

If you speak from Emptiness
I will fill you up with What I Love about You

If you speak from Loneliness
I will tell you Stories of All the Ones Who Love You

If you speak from Love
I will know that You are Doing the Same for Me

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