Tag: listen



Press here!

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Someone explained to me that most buttons in a city are dummies. For example, red traffic lights. They work on automatic settings but if you give a pedestrian a button to press, she has the impression of actively participating in her wish to cross the road.

Ellen J. Langer, Professor of Psychology at Harvard University studied “The illusion of control”. She came to the conclusion that buttons reduce stress and promote well-being. They are placebo buttons.

We use surveys to ask employees for their opinion, we vote in elections, our spouse comes to us for advice. And even if what happens as a result is not what we wanted, we have the impression that we have been listened to.

Most of what we want is to be listened to. If we have this space or a forum in which to express ourselves, we have the impression of being in control.

What things do you need to express to satisfy your need to be in control?



Talk! We’re listening to you.

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“If only the walls could talk!”  said the beauty therapist at a meeting of small business owners. “You can’t begin to imagine all the things my customers tell me.”

I smile to myself because it’s the same with my Italian teacher. She asks me what I did last week, what I’m doing this week and what I’m going to be doing in the future. This gets me practising the three verb tenses and, if there’s been some kind of misunderstanding and I regret not having done something, the conditional puts in an appearance too!

Sometimes, I think of her as my own personal psychologist (expresso style, of course!)

When it comes down to it, psychologists, coaches, beauty therapists and Italian teachers are just trying to get us to talk. None of them has the solution to our problems. That’s for us to find. But saying something aloud shines a different light on a situation. It’s not what someone else says that makes us progress, it’s taking the time to listen to our own voice.

A personal psychologist who knows how to listen without providing a solution or giving their opinion is a rare beast. If you have one, you know it.

Tell them how much they mean to you. They’ll like that. And I’d like to say to Laura, sei la migliore! (you’re the best!)



The story within you

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I nearly always adopt the same approach when I am writing a bubble of happiness. I look for an idea, find an angle for it and start to write.

This summer I did it the other way round. I sat down every evening to write a chapter for a story that came to me as I went along.I didn’t know in the morning what I would be writing in the evening and what was going to happen to my characters.

Sitting at my keyboard, I would observe the images that came into my head and describe them.

On some occasions really bizarre ideas sprang to mind. On others, I was laughing to myself. I wondered where all these ideas originated – they seemed to come out of nowhere.

That fount of stories, that only needed letting out, had always been there. Untapped. Bubbling with all sorts of sounds. This summer I drank from this source for the first time.

What about you? Do you take the time to listen to the stories hidden deep within you? What inspiration lies within you that is just waiting to be nurtured?