The Power of Listening

Remember when you were a kid and you were trying to get your mom's attention? You wanted her to watch you do your new, cool, trick (so bad) that you couldn’t stop screaming, “Mom, mom, mom, watch! Maaahhhm, waaatch!” It didn’t matter whether you were jumping into a swimming pool, one hand up in the air and the other hand plugging your nose. It wasn’t a big trick, but it was your trick and you wanted mom to watch.

Maybe you wanted dear mother to bear witness to your talents and genius as manifested through the masterpiece of a stick-drawn painting done in the wet sand beach. What about your gifts of intellect and creativity when it came to your architecturally phenomenal sand castles? And let us not forget how important it was for mom to see one of life’s truly spectacular creations, a divine structure that can only be created in an environment where water can mix with sand to make mud, which is the mud poop mountain. “Mom, see? Look how high I got it!”

I’ve used the: Mom, look! Mom, see! analogy before. The analogy is an important one. I’m sure, at some point in my writing adventures, I’ve also already talked about mud poop mountains (an obviously important part of my childhood, being a Southern California native, and growing up and going to the many of California’s beaches and lakes). But being a master poop-mountain maker (and I am) is not what I am getting at here.

All those: Mom, mom, mom looks, which are no different than: Dad, dad, dad, look (see me!) they turn into: Honey, did you hear me? And: Doesn’t anyone get where I am coming from?

From the time we put in a bid for our parent’s affections and attention, then started to fight for our turn in the sand box with the kids on the playground, and then we strive to be heard across the board-room table, we decided, maybe not consciously (but we decided) what it meant if we were or weren’t being heard. We decided whether or not the world was seeing us the way we needed to be seen. The world was, and is, our world, and is made up of everything we need to hear or see us.

What we think our world sees in us can be bad or good. Ever hear of a blond complaining that she's not taken seriously by anyone? Ever judged a book by its cover and decided you wouldn’t accept anything that book had to offer? Ever act in a different way because you wore something different that day, something more businesslike, more hoochie, less hoochie, or even frumpy?

On and on it goes, the way we listen to the world and the way we think the world listens to us.

When we’ve gotten someone’s full attention, or just got half of it, or got none of it at all, that was tallied. All those times we had to jump up and down again, or jump through the hoop, every time we raised the bar, screamed a little louder, or maybe we even went as far as getting a proverbial fire ring, a ramp, and a motorcycle to be seen, we collected those experiences as part of our tally. What we added up then became our definition of how worth it we are.

For some of us, if we collected too many of those experiences where we felt unheard, unseen, we stopped asking to be seen. We stopped wanting to be heard. We dropped out a little. Or, a lot. It wasn’t worth it, we decided. We aren’t worth it; our world told us. If our world said it, and we told it back to ourselves, it must be true.

For others, most of us (I think), we may not have gone as far as trying on the Evel Knievel regalia to be recognized (we’re all just trying to be known), and most of us don’t drop out, but we did stop listening to others. That’s our fire ring. That’s our win: I won’t listen to you so I can be the bigger one in this room.

This happens to us unconsciously, but there is a reason, well, many reasons, why we are closing our eyes and our ears to others, to what they have to say about themselves and to what they have to say about us. By not listening we are subconsciously attacking the other person and protecting our self. That doesn’t make sense? Doesn’t it? The brain (the ego), the part of us that tallied things up, is unconsciously saying: Humph! See? I win. I don’t have to listen. I don’t have to take it in. I won’t break the chain of hurt, I will perpetuate it.

Again, I believe this is a subconscious thing and I believe we don’t mean to do this, to actively not listen. But we do it. We do it too much. All of us. We’ve all seen someone do it to us.

This subconscious excursion: I am not going to listen to you because I need to be listened to, it’s loaded. We’re telling others: You may not have been the one who didn’t listen to me before, but you’re here now, and I need someone to see me now, and I can’t ask for that (because that’s scary, and I’m already carrying too much pain. Plus, I don’t want you to see the other side of my skin) so it’s easier for me to just talk over you, to talk faster than you, to talk louder than you, to talk more…to just TALK. Yes, yes, yes…I know. You want to do some of the talking, but too bad. I’m in more pain. Remember? I feel crappy inside, so I need to do what I can to feel un-crappy. Please, just LISTEN to me.

True, there are many of us who are not talkers. For those of us, we don’t always use talking as the weapon not to listen. Sometimes we use passive-aggressive hearing. We pretend to listen. We remain silent and have the appearance of being attentive, but we no more want to give up being the biggest one in the room than the talker is. We’re just fighting back in the way we can. Why wouldn’t non-talkers have their tally, too, and to that end have their defense? Saying too little, or nothing at all, can hurt someone just as much as saying too much and doing all the talking.

Talker or non-listener, one way or another we’ll find our control, dang it. We’ll get seen. We will! It’ll be about us if we need it to be badly enough.

Does this need, to be the one who the topic is on, to be the one doing the loudest talking or to be the best non-listener make us egotistical, narcissistic, mean? On the contrary. It makes us human, flawed, needing…normal.

On the opposite side, for those who can and do listen, in my experience I've found that the best listeners are also the best conversationalists. When someone really listens, when they hear and see who is speaking to them and they take in what that person is talking about, that good listener’s response is usually a response that will add value to the person being listened to and to their own self.

Unfortunately, that isn't what happens a lot of the time, not until we stop needing as much, so much. Many of us don’t get to that place. I know I try to get there everyday, to get to where I need less, to where I am grateful more. But, it’s not the easiest place to stay even when you do get there. It takes practice even getting there at all, being grateful more than being needing.

But, practice was never meant to make us perfect. Practice is what we do when the thing we’re practicing at takes constant practice. (And if you think I used the word “practice” too much, that’s the point. Everything worth it takes practice and practicing at whatever it is never, ever stops. That’s why it is called practice.)

Anyway, that’s how we end up where most of us mean to be there for others most of the time. We really want to be the part of each other’s lives that builds on instead of takes apart. It’s just that with so many of us walking around in need, and with so many of us not practicing what we need to get through a little better, we fall short for ourselves and for others. Plus, that need to be seen, and to be loved for what others see in us, runs so deep, the lengths we will go to in order to be seen can hurt someone else.

I know this because recently I very much needed to talk about something to a friend that that was turning over some pain inside of me, and in my effort to be listened to by this friend, every time the friend asked me how I was doing in regards to this situation, the friend didn’t let me answer. The question was only asked so that the friend could start a conversation that would lead to them talking about themselves.

That’s what hurt, to be asked a question by a friend who never really wanted the answer. The friend wanted to say, needed to say, what they had on their mind. Sadly, most of what was on the friend’s mind wasn’t life shattering. It was just chatter. It was: I need to be seen more than you so I’ll do the talking now.

I understood that. I’ve always understood that about this friend. Even if my life were crumbling around me this particular friend wouldn’t be able to be there for me, not really. This friend has so much pain inside that they’d rather talk about their ripe tomatoes or their dog’s pink collar just so they can be bigger in the room, to be the one more seen.

To that end, I honored this person's need which, again, given their constant state, is almost always greater than mine. However, that doesn’t change the fact that my feelings were hurt. I’m not a saint. I still needed to be heard and didn’t get that opportunity. I’m just not going to compete. It’s not worth it to try harder to share what ails ya when someone is talking over you.

However, this example makes the point that rarely, if ever, is it our intention to hurt someone else with our needs that keep us from listening. Down deep, when we are our true selves, independent of the ego’s needs, nothing we do to help ourselves is ever meant to hurt another person. But it happens. We could say, when it comes to the ego that it’s so personal that nothing’s personal. In fact the friend, who I just used as an example, would never want to hurt me. In fact, this friend has so much love for me that my tears are not something this friend can even handle witnessing. (This says a lot about the degree of this person’s pain, that they cannot even be in the presence of another’s pain.)

Regardless, and what sux, is that whatever we’ve done, whatever has been done to us, we’re still going to take it all personally. After all, we’re all vying for the same attention: each other’s.

That's why sometimes we can't even listen to what might be good for us. Ever found it curious, those times you’ve been completely impervious to some advice being given to you? No matter how seemingly attractive that bit of advice may be, no matter how tasty that food for thought is, you shoot it down. That’s not something you’ll be swallowing, thanks. It could never work because you needed to be seen, not fixed, not advised. (BTW, one of the things that had made me fall in love with Mr. Gold Standard, years ago, was because he never offered any food for thought before he fully listened first. Rare quality.)

The kicker, when we’re talking over someone, or offering advise, since we preach and teach what we ourselves need to learn, the person doing the talking might benefit to do just as much of the listening, at least to what they’re saying since it’s usually what they themselves are trying to learn.

What’s also interesting, that many of us don’t understand about our nature, is that when aren’t listening, when we interrupt each other, or when we just nod and wait for our turn to speak, whether we’re trying to get the subject back to us, or whether we’re delicately opposing the advise being offered (laying out how it could never work) we’re essentially admitting that we need to be heard more than we are capable of hearing. We’re rolling back the side of our skin we never wanted someone to see in the first place.

That’s why it might be useful to us for us to start watching the times we aren’t listening, acknowledging when we do interrupt, and take that opportunity to ask ourselves what our need is.

But sometimes two people gotta be able to just talk and have it not be about need and all this interrupting crap, right? Of course. There are many times it is like that, with close relationships, with lovers, mates, partners, good friends, with anyone we’ve felt seen by.

It works out like that, almost like poetry, for both parties, and works best when two people, who have consigned themselves to listening to life, just as much as they have learned to listen to others, have a conversation. It should be noted that learning to listen to others and to life is something that needs to be practiced EVERY day. But when two people can really listen to each other, man, now that’s something to experience.

I had that experience the other day, with a friend, Sparrow. She and I are in a similar place in life where we are talking, saying out loud and affirming the lessons we’re trying to securely fasten to our forward path, yes, but we’re also listening to anything that will get us moving in the right direction a little faster, a little more enlightened, and with a little more grace.

During our conversation neither of us was trying to protect themselves from any of the advice we’d offered each other. Our armor was to the side. In this conversation there wasn’t any: You can’t tell me anything I don’t already know going on. We weren’t puffing up or keeping the other from really seeing or being seen. In other words, our hearts were in the room, not our egos. This made it possible for us to talk with each other rather than talk to or at the other.

It was our conversation that not only inspired this post, but reminded me of why I had made a pact with myself, long ago, to in fact try every day to listen more. I wanted to become as good of a listener as I could and to let the person who needs to be listened to more do most of the talking (even if that’s me). Making that agreement with myself, that I’d learn, as best as I could, to listen to myself, to others, and to life with vulnerability, and I’d learn to allow myself to see that we all need the words coming our way, has made an amazing difference in my life.

If we don’t listen, what we need doesn’t get ever in. If we don’t listen, we’re only processing in one direction. We’re just letting things out. That’s how a person ends up empty. That’s how a person blocks the things that will actually fix the pain, the need.

BTW, letting the words in doesn’t mean we’ll always agree with what’s said, or that someone is always going to be able to see us how we need to be seen, but if the intention is good, someone else’s or ours, the words we disagree with can help us just as much as the ones we find agreeable. Words that are hard to swallow can also tell us where we’re going.

Slightly dramatic pause, here…

I feel the need throw something out:
Remember, I am not a psychologist, just a student of life. What I say may not be the truth, or it might be. Either way, I'm just here, on this blog, to share the experiences that being a student of life have given me. And, in my experience, I'd much rather talk with someone than to them. I’d much rather listen and learn than always need and exert.

Anyway, it was a great conversation with Sparrow and it reaffirmed the Power of Listening, the power of what can get in…

People have the opportunity to say the darndest things when someone else’s mouth is closed. There’s a lot of power in letting someone else do the needing, the exerting, the protecting, or the proving (proving to be right, to be louder, or to be bigger). Once you stop needing to exert yourself and your ache, even when if it’s a quiet ache, still, quieting it down a bit can be a good thing. That’s when the coolest things come your way. Information you already knew gets recycled in a way you are Now ready to hear.

There is just as much, if not more power, in what comes when it doesn’t come from a place of need. Light is shining throughout our worlds, our lives, even when words aren’t being used. We just have to listen and take the light in.

After all, they say that everything we need to learn will keep repeating itself until we get that lesson. What if we listen more? Maybe we’ll get to repeat less? Just a thought.

Keep being fabulous! Keep listening.