Jo-Anne, Thank you! Well said! This is so important.
Along this same line, this kind of listening is especially important when moms keep
putting up obstacles to our help, and yet they keep asking for help.  When a mom
"rubs me the wrong way" that usually means I need to listen more, and it is often a
key to recognizing post partum depression.  Tina Smillie

> Date:    Sun, 16 Mar 2003 22:13:48 -0400
> From:    Jo-Anne Elder <[log in to unmask]>
> Subject: obstacles to understanding

.....

>
> Whenever we are "educating" about breastfeeding (or most other things of
> importance) it is essential to do more listening than talking. I mean
> real listening, which does not involve thinking that it is a shame
> people feel one way or say certain things. My experience is that at the
> beginning, we can chomp down on our tongues when we feel those thoughts
> coming up -- the censorship, the judgments, the distance, ego, the
> conviction that we are right. We can practice not saying these things
> out loud, and eventually, it starts to come naturally. That one woman
> who makes us rethink our position on an issue is doing the same thing we
> are trying to do... encourage people to make changes in their lives. The
> process we go through, learning to accept mothers where they are and
> coming to understand them is pretty similar to the changes in personal
> lives and in society. It always takes a lot of time and is subject to
> both setbacks and break-throughs, neither of which can be predicted or
> controlled.
>
> That's why I think it's important to work on overcoming our own
> obstacles to understanding, those inner statements that "no one in her
> right mind would..." I am no longer sure about anything except the value
> of possibilities that uncertainty can open up. That is a lesson my
> children have taught me.
>
> off the soapbox and off to bed
> Jo-Anne Elder-Gomes, PhD in matters unrelated, IBCLC by choice, mother
> for reasons still being discovered.

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