Mirroring what my partner or anyone else is saying, forces me, the listener, to actually accomplish the task at hand.  I have to listen.  I can't repeat what has been said if I don't devote myself completely to the word being spoken.  I can't be preparing my response or definse while she is still speaking.  I can't be gauging her words waiting for my opportunity to jump in and voice my incredibly correct, carefully thought out, and superior opinion.  I'm not permitted to have one.  I will be beaten with a bat and or hav my mouth painfully taped if any words are uttered that do not reflect exactly the words and thoughts that the sender is trying to convey.  In this moment, my thoughts and words are not important.  Nothing is more important than the words of my partner.

I actually do get it.  No suprise.  It is difficult to change the habits of 50+ years, even if they are bad habits.  Now I am so aware of really listening when someone else is speaking.  I don't always do it.  I'm just aware.  I find it painful when I catch myself measuring the speaker's cadence, ready to jump in with my thoughts at the slightest pause in conversation.  I have been around great conversationalists.  They don't say much.  They are actually just good listeners.  They ask a lot of questions, as though your life and thoughts have to be so much more interesting and brilliant than your own.  I respect their genius.  I want to be more like them.  i'm really trying to be better.  And I am improving. 

The most rewarding part about this work is that I really believe it will allow us to communicate on a level that was never possible.  I will hear and process what she is saying and reciprocally she will hear my words.  And we may come away witha relationship that in the past, even at it's peak, was not what this one will become.  If not, I know we will at least be better people because of the possibilities in every area of our lives that this therapy has the potential to create.