Author wrote:
Dear Mike, Mary, Jane, and all
I can cope with the not be heard, just. I know in my heart what is right and what is wrong – I cannot make others see or listen. Their wake up call has to come from within. What I really struggle with is the lack of compassion and the sheer greed of people. To be a nice caring person today, is to be dumped on and taken advantage of. When I look around (lets take MP's etc) the more uncaring you can be, the better you succeed. Is that what life teaches us Mike? Good people get trodden on – the bad climb higer up that ladder.
I want to live my life, poking my nose into no one's business, look after my animals, and just be left to do what I want to do. Sadly, Mike these things are fast slipping away. I do not want the earth, heaven or stars – just my little World right here where I am now. Is that so very wrong?
Coleen

Author wrote:
Dear Frances, Coleen and Pat ("Looking in other direction" postings),
In personal development training we are familiar with what we call the "Not being heard" drama.
My first encounter with this was a personal one – leaving a job where I was "Not being heard" only to find myself in a new job where I was also "Not being heard"! And as if that was not enough I also found myself also in a couple of leisure groups where I was also "Not being heard" AND came to painfully realise that "Not being heard" was actually a lifelong pattern stretching back to my childhood!
With the aid of cognitive therapy training which I undertook at that time, I came to realise that actually LIFE was trying to tell ME something and was "NOT BEING HEARD".
Life was telling me that I could usefully look at the why, how and where of my communications – a rather embarrassing bit of feedback for someone who had taught communication skills for many years!
The only long-term solution to these uncomfortable life patterns is to track them back to the early-life wounds which set them up, and change that programming (conditioning) and replace it with more effective training.
In the meantime here are 3 quick tips that have worked well for me...
1. "Never try to teach a pig to sing – it wastes your time and annoys the pig"
2. "If you wrestle with a pig you'll both get dirty and only a pig will find this rewarding"
(you can see that my years of being involved in pig health work where not entirely wasted!)
3. "If you can bear to hear the truths you've spoken, twisted by twisted by rogues to make a trap for fools, or watch the things you gave your life to broken, and stoop and build them up with wornout tools...
...Yours is the earth and everything that's in it!"
(paraphrased from Rudyard Kipling's "If")
What did Kipling mean? What had he learned?
I believe that he had become aware of the tremendous creative power of suffering.
Communication Stress is after all just "energy" albeit in a rather uncomfortable form.
As physicists know, energy is indestructible, it can only go round and round or be transformed from one format to another (even into solid material things). The stress of suffering can be transformed into personal growth (skill, wisdom, experience), creative ideas and solutions and the healing of old wounds (which is where I began this message).
Whether you prefer your suffering to go round and round, or prefer to transform it into something else – have a great day!
Mike
www.stress-counselling.co.uk