It amazes me how you think you can be communicating so clearly with another person, whether it's a friend, a family member, or your own children/husband, and by their response you quickly learn you're not getting through. I'm learning very slowly never to assume that what I feel may be clear communication on my part, does not directly result in clear understanding on another's part because we all think so differently and if we do understand each other perfectly, I fear it is just a situation of pure luck.
For example, just yesterday as we were driving home late from my soccer game, my children were tired and ready to go to bed, since it was 1.5 hours past their bedtime. I was firmly telling each one of them their instructions immediately upon entering our front door, "1. put pajamas one and 2. get in bed. The end!" Halen responded, "Can you read us a book?" I, of course, quickly turned her down and explained it was because it was already so late and and hour and a half past their bedtime. She didn't really understand the great significance of how late it was and therefore I felt it necessary to "communicate more clearly" by saying, "Honey, your bedtime was an hour and a half ago. That's like 3 Sponge Bob Shows." Then I proudly silently praised myself for coming up with terms she might better be able to understand, but only to abruptly hear her say, "But, I didn't watch Sponge Bob today!"
I quickly realized it wasn't worth explaining and reverted back to the good ol' "Because Mom said so!" excuse. Although I hated hearing this very excuse as a child, I now recognize it just makes more sense and would rather "communicate clearly" with a dead end excuse like that, then fail miserably in detouring my children completely into thinking their daily tv agenda corresponds directly with their bedtime. What a joke!
I've been reading a few books lately on life after death and The Spirit World and have learned a lot about their form of communication. They communicate not only through words via their thoughts, but also through their entire being of feelings. Therefore we won't need to wonder what our motives are or our true intentions because we, the recipents, will be able to feel the message as well as hear the message. This would have been helpful in the experience above, but I fear will be detrimental to my marriage in the here and now and hope I can learn to match up my feelings more with my actual statements in situations like "Honey would you like to go hunting with me?" "Sure, dear I'd love to." I reply as my heart pounds and my brain quickly racks up all the reasons why I won't be able to go when the time to quickly arrives. Or theres, "Honey, is this outfit good enough?" as we are heading out for a special evening with family or friends. With my reply, "Sure, dear, you look great!" as my thoughts really think, "yeah, it'll have to do even though I wish it was more dressy or prim & proper, I don't have the energy nor time to fight with you on it or prove my thoughts and wishes."
Oh, I have a lot to still learn before the afterlife suddenly presents itself to me, don't I?
4 comments:
Very funny story. Miscommunication is one of the most frustrating things ever!
aw man that is so frustrating, I hate miscommunication. and what books are you reading, those sound very interesting? lol about going hunting, etc.. so true I have a long long long way to go before my words match my feelings.
Holy cow, you are describing my entire life. I can't understand how "go get in the shower" turns out to be a 10 minute discussion on either the entire week's shower order (I was first last night!!) OR how there are only 15 minutes left of the Wizards of Waverly Place, and we have never seen this episode before. I truly have to take a deep breath so as not to pull my hair out!
Huh, what are you trying to say, I don't understand. Could you repeat yourself?
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