Biting my tongue !

14. August 2021

Just a thought sharing with you my reader but at the same time contemplating about the meaning of to Bite your tongue, and perhaps I will learn something about me.

Sometimes I am too honest and say what comes to my mind before thinking.

Someone told me the other day I should bite my tongue before saying just what popped into my mind that moment.

Now I have been biting my tongue for some days and should in fact be a bit proud of myself.

I did look up the dictionary meaning of the phrase before writing this and I found this:

I wanted to tell him exactly what I thought of him, but I had to bite my tongue.

This phrase got me to think about something else.

What about when you are asked how you are today and the person asking has NO interest in listening to how you feel?

Let’s look at this conversation:

1. How are you today my friend?

2. I am very tired after all the work I did yesterday and today I have been doing …………the number 2 is cut off, the number one needs to tell his or her story

1. O, I am very tired, I have been doing this since early morning ……………………….and so it goes on.

2. Really, oh that is not good and I understand you are tired!

No 1 could and might use some of those:  I want to eat now, or I want to rest now, or I want to take a shower, or whatever the number one wants to do. He or she is definitely not going to listen to a word the number 2 is going to say about how he or she is feeling, but that was the question number one asked at the top of the conversation  HOW ARE YOU TODAY MY FRIEND?

This is interesting, or so I think.

Why are people really asking you how you are feeling if they don´t give a dam?

Are they asking you just to be able to talk about themselves without feeling too bad not caring about the other one?

It is also interesting to think about if you are pregnant and you meet a woman.

She notices about your pregnancy and perhaps asks how you are doing but then the flow gate opens and she tells you all the horror stories about her pregnancy and giving birth, and even her friends horror stories as well. How often do you hear about the easy pregnancies and the easy births?

I met a friend today and she asked how I was doing.

I told her I was recovering from the surgery in May and would be to the hospital on the 2. of September for a check-up.

She asked if it was my heart but I told her what it was and then I got the story about how she had the same surgery some years ago and the whole story about everything.

I would really have liked to ask her about some side affects but I gave up that idea and bit my tongue.

My point is this:

Why are people not willing to listen?

Why do they have to put their own experience instead of listening to the other one and perhaps learn something?

I do have a friend who listens. If she asks a question, I know she is really going to listen to me and she really wants to hear what I have to say about the matter. Thank the almighty for people like her. I think they might be a rarity.

What did I learn about writing this?

I did learn something really important:

I need to listen to myself and see if I am a good listener, which I think I am, or if I always jump with my own experience into the conversation.

This morning I had to keep my thoughts and bite my tongue. How I did it was by turning off my phone, going to the supermarket, which takes 18 minutes’ drive and the same back. When I came back to my home village, I drove to another place to take care of something else and all the time, about 2 hours, I was free. My phone was turned off and not even with me. For security reasons I took my other phone with me which has no social media apps. No Facebook, no WhatsApp, no Skype and nothing but a regular Portuguese number to call from if I needed to.

There are ways and there are solutions.

I have a task to talk about the subject that I am biting my tongue about now.

I have no idea how to do it without becoming harsh and perhaps sounding unfair.

It is a matter that is really important to me and my future. In a way it is I think about boundaries.

It is new for me to set boundaries. I help people until death and allow them to use me to the end and sometimes I have had enough and my way out has been simply to leave.

I don´t want to use the old way now.

I want to try a new solution.

I’m going to get there but my lord it is complicated for someone like me to set boundaries and stick to them and stay.

I am learning.

But one thing I know for sure, and that is: I am a really good listener when you need me, but sometimes I just need you to listen to me, whoever you are. I know the people who don´t listen and they are the ones I cut of and jump into their story to tell mine. It is the only way to get their attention.

Hulda Bjornsdottir