Archives

How to Complain

Posted on September 28, 2021     Leave a Comment

As weird as it sounds, complaining is an art form. Just as we can appreciate the difference between a landscape painting of William Blake and a painting of a landscape featuring a sun (always confusingly wearing sunglasses) by our 6 year old niece; we can likewise appreciate the difference between a person who complains and […]

Read More

How Not To Be a Drainer

Posted on September 26, 2021     Leave a Comment

The drainer is a terrorist, holding someone hostage in conversation. It is an unfortunate reality that when you meet new people, there are few perceptible signs before speaking to them that they are a drainer. Maybe you saw people they were talking to eye off the exit, or observed exasperated shrugs of the shoulders, perhaps […]

Read More

On Being Heard

Posted on September 6, 2021     Leave a Comment

We lash out because we haven’t been listened to, not because we’ve been listened to too much. At the end of the day, sometimes what we really need is not for someone to agree with us, or to give us advice, but simply to hear us; to validate our feelings, to recognise our inner turmoil, […]

Read More

On Mental Blocks & What It Means To Really Listen

Posted on February 16, 2021     Leave a Comment

One of the problems that arise when listening to others, as David Bohm wrote in his exquisite work On Dialogue, is our belief ‘that one already is listening to the other person in a proper way’. It is always the other person who is misguided, isn’t it? It is the dangerously misplaced belief that we […]

Read More