When Louder Isn’t Better
Feeling Heard and Understood
I was watching an old TV show the other day, and one character was protesting something and claimed, “Loud people get heard!” Now, perhaps that’s true when it comes to the protest in that fictional story. But in real life? I’m not so sure about that.
I don’t know about you, but I grew up in a household where tempers flared. One moment, everything was fine and then suddenly there was a lot of anger and a lot of yelling.
Unfortunately, when you are a child, you learn these communication styles at an early age. For example, my mother would yell. My dad would dismiss her, and she would get louder. They reached out to their minister for counseling, where my mother was promptly told that my father was in charge of the household, and that as a woman, she should stay in her lane. The message she learned was that the church mattered. She didn’t, and she had nothing of value to say.
What messages and communication style do you think I learned as a child? It could have gone either way. I might have thought, “loud people get heard” and chose to take on that behavior of yelling. Or, if I felt that my sense of self-worth was diminished, I might have clammed up and stopped expressing myself altogether. After all, who is going to listen to a child, much less a girl? Furthermore, was the underlying reinforcement that the order of importance in our household was the church (and the elders of the church), my father (the man of the household), and if my mother was very lucky, she got to be in third place? It sure seemed that way.
Now, maybe your experience was different, but if you can relate to a noisy, angry household, please tune into my video below. In it, I share three tips for the child who grew up in this type of environment, who may need to unlearn and relearn a better way of communicating. In essence, I share how to 1) Pause, 2) Examine your Words and 3) Become an Active Listener.
Your relationships will be better. You can break this pattern of behavior and NOT pass it on to the next generation.
For those interested in diving deeper into this topic, CLICK HERE to try this free meditation in Insight Timer on remaining calm, and CLICK HERE to purchase my new “I Am Enough” workbook. I welcome questions and comments: Danielle@BirdlandMediaWorks.com or visit BirdlandMediaWorks.com.
