How does it make you feel when you are trying to tell someone something, but they are not listening to you?
Frustrated? Angry? Sad? Unimportant?
What if we are unintentionally making the people we care about feel this way because we can’t hear them?
Listening and hearing are two separate things that are inextricably intertwined in our lives. Many times we are hearing sounds, but we are not paying attention to them – as in not listening. This is selective hearing, which is a real thing and allows us to navigate our world without being overwhelmed by the vast numbers of sounds that surround us daily. Selective hearing can cause friction when someone is trying to talk to us, but our attention is engaged somewhere else, so we don’t hear them. However, when someone has our attention, we hear them clearly because we are listening.
Sometimes we are trying hard to listen to something, but we just can’t hear it. We will ask someone to repeat in this situation, but the sound is still muddled, so we still don’t understand. This is hearing loss, which is separate and distinct from selective hearing.
However, to our loved ones, whether it is selective hearing or hearing loss, when they don’t feel like we are listening to them, it causes friction in the relationship. It can cause others to feel angry, frustrated, sad. It can make them feel like what they are trying to say is unimportant to us. It can make them feel like we don’t care about them.
When we have a hearing loss, we aren’t doing this on purpose. However, whether it is purposeful or not, the effects on our closest relationships can be dramatic. Some marriages have even ended over hearing loss because of the difficulties in communication hearing loss can cause. Here’s an excellent article from our friends at Healthy Hearing about the effects of hearing loss on relationships: Click Here
Getting help for our hearing shows our loved ones in a tangible way that you care enough to hear what they have to say. Hearing aids make listening and hearing our loved ones easier, reduce frustrations and misunderstandings, and significantly improve our social life. Then, the only thing we have to deal with is selective hearing, which can be fixed by making sure we get someone’s attention before trying to talk to them!
If someone in your life has been mentioning that you need to get help for your hearing, show them you care enough to listen to what they have to say. Give Audibel a call at 800-605-9608 for a complimentary hearing exam today!
Audibel of Central Illinois 