March 6- Listening For

This week was supposed to be "Speaking for" but we switched it around.
Consider the way you listen. That is what experiences are based on- where you are listening from. Actions and words line up to what you are listening for.
"Imagine what the world would look like if you could create what you are listening for." We did an exercise with a partner. Heidi spoke of a current irritation. I thought of what terms Dr. R had used the week before. Then I decided to just listen to Heidi. I made a few guessses. Then I said she was listening for approval, and she thought that was it! Then I spoke of the morning news- gang violence in LA, violence in Israel and Palestine, and my frustration that the gangs didn't wake up to the reality of violence in other places and how petty theirs is. Heidi made some guesses, I pushed her a little, and she said "hope." Ah, yes. That was what I was listening for.
However, a day later I started thinking about this. Heidi and I were working backwards. We were identifying what we wanted to hear, but now what we were actually listening for. Actually, I was listening for despair, and so that's what I was hearing. She was listening for disapproval, and so that is what she was hearing. While what we identified was helpful for us, it wasn't really what we were listening for.
One term that kept coming up was "Where are you listening from." But I don't think that was the point. I think the point is really to think about what you are hearing from the other. That is what you are listening for. If you want to change what you are hearing, change what you are listening for.
What's interesting about all of what we're learning is that I've been doing some of this at work in the past year.
"I create what I look for." This is why my students don't really make me angry with rude personal quesitons. I'm listening for learning- not disprespect. However, there are definitely some things I take as disrespect, and they may not mean it that way- speaking over other students, interupting, being noisy during tests, etc.
This makes me think about what I'm listening for with my children and my husband. Why does Leila frustrate me sometimes?
What am I listening for in my photography?
"Live your life as a speech act of creation. You say what is SO."
Dr. R. talked for a bit about paired opposites. There is no slave without a master, no maid without a mistress.
How come when people get married, then, the man stays a man and the woman becomes a wife?as in "I now pronounce you man and wife." What does that say about her position as subject? Or does it perhaps mean that he now becomes a man, but he wasn't before?