Not Being Listened To Is A Loud Noise.
In this tender world, if we did nothing but listen well — to strangers, loved ones, co-workers, animal companions . . . our own wise hearts — we’d be comfort and heroes to many, including ourselves.
What follows are personal stories, reminiscences and reflections, listening featured at the heart of them.
When I was a girl, my mother and I broke in on one another while we were speaking. We did this more times than I can remember.
My mother meant no harm. She had her opinions. I had mine. But I was young and no match for her. She may as well have been stomping on my toes as on my words.
It was the 1950s. I had no language to explain to my mother or to any grownup — let alone to myself — the hurt of not being listened to. Thinking back, I realize my mother had no language for it either.
She was a good woman. But she swam in her emotions (just as I swam in mine) and couldn’t understand the effect she was having.
No wonder when we aren’t listened to, we whine or wail or go silent or shout. And no wonder we often weep when someone comes close to knowing — or even wanting to know — who we are.
In my forties, I left my cabin in the woods in Maine to volunteer for two weeks in a North Carolina free hospice center. One afternoon, a very old man I was caring for began telling me about his days as a soldier during WWII.
In the midst of sharing one of his stories, he stopped speaking and eyed me with a twinkle. “You’re really listening to me, aren’t you?” he said.
To my mind, it is this respect we want most fiercely, not that people will mend our lives, necessarily, or even agree with us.
A day my heart ached, a friend nestled me into an armchair in her home and brought me milk and cookies — the kind of cookies she knew I liked best — then sat with me while I spoke at my own pace.
She didn’t talk about herself or seem restless or put upon. She didn’t break in or nod before I said something that required a response. She heard me clearly, was able to grasp what I was saying, and didn’t ask me to repeat something I’d just explained.
In those moments, there was no place on earth I could have felt more at home.
Many listeners “hear and grasp” but interrupt anyway.
I’ve done that — no reason good enough — and I’m humbled the instant I realize. Best I can, I try to restore the connection I’ve broken.
Folks sometimes listen well to people they don’t know, but turn away if someone in their family needs them. Or they flare, then close down or get upset, if someone speaks of matters that awaken an old wound.
The evening my hundred-and-two year old friend, Theresa, spoke to me in detail about her life, she surprised me. Usually Theresa didn’t have much to say. Rarely, anything personal.
On this occasion, she apologized, teary-eyed and often, for speaking so much about herself. “I was taught better than that,” she said.
Some moments I jumped in too soon, trying to save her from her feelings. Other moments, I waited too long to try to soothe her.
How like tuning forks we listeners must be.
Some individuals corner us, then speak nonstop. An opera star would kill for their breath power. We sense anyone could be standing in front of them, they hardly would notice or care. We‘re sure they would turn on us in anger, or in talk of us to others, if we fled while they still wanted us.
But what if we didn’t flee? What if we considered the possibility that loneliness or another painful emotion were ruling them? What if we didn’t try to protect ourselves — no judgment, no boundaries, no walls? What if, even in our busy world, our first instinct were to turn toward, not turn away?
Author Brenda Ueland listened faithfully to a man who spoke on and on and on.
Eventually — almost miraculously — something “clicked” in the man. Exposed at length to his own words, in the company of someone completely present to him, he was able to free himself from an outlook that had hobbled him for years.
“Suddenly,” Ueland wrote, “you begin to hear not only what people are saying, but also what they are trying to say, and you sense the whole truth about them.”
Two young children come to their mothers with a happy tale from school. One mother barely listens to her son, though likely she’d have been there for him if he’d cut himself or fallen.
The other mother kneels and smiles at her little boy. “I’m sorry,” she tells him. “I have an appointment that won’t wait. Will you save your story for me? I want to listen to every word.” Even before the boy remembers to remind his mother of her promise, she remembers what she said and gladly makes time for him.
The 1986 Mother Teresa video (narrated by Richard Attenborough) features missionaries of charity cleaning the slum apartments of several old people in New York City. One old woman complains about her life. She wishes aloud that God would take her.
The sisters listen but don’t stop scrubbing and sweeping. They reply lightly, almost musically — and with love — saying, “Now, you know God will take you when he’s ready, don’t you?”
The old woman seems cheered by this reintroduction to what is. “I suppose so,” she sighs.
Sitting with her later, focused on her completely, the sisters move forward with the woman into the realm of what can be done to help her — what she can do to help herself — rather than backward into her habit of self-concern.
People do not struggle to speak unless there is something they dearly want to say. When medication or stroke or pain robs individuals of clear speech, only sometimes are they robbed of their brain power.
What a gift when those receiving care are listened to genuinely and patiently, no matter the extent of their confusion, then guided to find ways their thoughts and feelings can be made known, to whatever degree this is possible.
Listen for watery sounds of grief in someone’s voice when he or she is talking. For angry heat, even in a voice that speaks quietly. For flutters of fear, for excess emotion stashed tight within the heart.
Listening well is seeing deeply with our ears.
A stroke victim cried every morning following her daily phone conversation with her daughter. She knew her daughter could not make out all she was saying.
Hearing this, I wondered if three of the words her daughter couldn’t catch were “I love you.”
Maybe the mother had said these words often to her daughter throughout their lifetime together. Or maybe she believed she’d never said them enough.
Fortunately, someone introduced her to a therapy dog. She fell in love with the dog and welcomed him into her room. Day after day, she talked to him behind her closed door.
Unlike busy human visitors, the dog was in no rush to leave her. He listened to her, as animal companions can do magnificently.
Her speech improved.
We clear a space when we listen well, just as we do in spring when we clear a tangle of old growth from our gardens so new life can flourish. In that fresh, uncluttered space, God-as-we-know-God has room to join us.
This post was inspired by a section from my book, Caring In Remembered Ways: The Fruit of Seeing Deeply. Both Caring In Remembered Ways and my website celebrate compassion as a way of life.
