What is on the inside of you makes the difference as to what you hear.
Illustration: Everything I am telling you now you are processing through what you already know or believe (what is on the inside of you) about this subject. And there is nothing wrong in doing so. In fact, sometimes it is a good thing. Why?
This is one way we have of testing what people are saying and then deciding whether to trust them or not.
But doing so can also be a deterrent to good communication and the development of good relationships. How?
Holding on to the past can rob us of the present and the future.
If what I am saying reminds you of something someone said or did (junk in your trunk) that you deemed unfavorable you might block my remarks because of the hurt they awakened in the recesses of your mind.
We covered this in the article entitled: Anger: Wanting Someone Else to Pay.
Communication, verbal and non-verbal, is a two-way street: talking and listening – actions and re-actions.
Regarding the junk in our trunks, we cannot undo what has been done to us; but we can undo what it is doing to us by exercising this thought and putting distance between the past and the present – that was then this is now.
Next time: Think, Say, Do
