Dailyprompt-2906
What’s the most underrated life skill?
There are probably many answers to this, but one of the most underrated life skills, in my opinion, is:
Learning how to really listen.
Not listening while you’re already preparing your reply.
Not listening so you can tell someone what they should have done.
Not listening for a convenient gap where you can jump in with your own story.
Just…
Listening.
It sounds incredibly simple.
Apparently, it isn’t.
Over the years, I’ve learned that sometimes people don’t actually want me to solve their problem.
They want somewhere safe to put it for a while.
As a mother, this was something I had to learn too.
When your children tell you something is wrong, every parental instinct immediately wants to jump into action.
Who did it? Where are they? What do we need to fix?
But as children grow older, sometimes they aren’t asking Mum to fix anything.
They just need Mum to listen.
The same is true in friendships and relationships.
Sometimes the most helpful thing we can say is:
“I’m here. Tell me.”
Listening also means hearing what someone is really saying.
People don’t always say:
I’m struggling.
Sometimes they say:
I’m tired.
They don’t always say:
I’m lonely.
Sometimes they simply start talking because they need somebody to stay for a while.
And listening doesn’t mean you have to agree with everything someone says.
It means giving them enough respect to hear them before deciding what you think.
I’ve also learned another part of this skill:
Listening to yourself.
That little voice telling you something doesn’t feel right.
Your body telling you it needs rest.
Your intuition telling you to pay attention.
Your own feelings telling you that perhaps you’ve said “I’m fine” enough times.
For someone who spent many years being a people pleaser, learning to listen to myself has probably been just as important as learning to listen to others.
Maybe that’s why I think listening is so underrated.
It doesn’t look dramatic.
Nobody gets an award for sitting quietly beside someone.
There’s no certificate saying:
Congratulations! You managed not to interrupt for ten consecutive minutes.
But sometimes being truly heard can mean more to someone than a hundred pieces of advice.
💜
With love, coffee, poetry, and stardust,
— Maggie The Afterlove Voice 💫
DJ Maggie in the house
https://ditto.fm/arena-51-the-calima-conspiracy-original-mix
https://ditto.fm/arena-51-the-calima-conspiracy-alien-invasion-remix
https://ditto.fm/silenced-but-not-broken
My song “Silenced but not broken” Lyric video.
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