I wrote this last spring and never published it. Today it goes to post....__________________________________________
There is truth in the statement, "please hear what I'm not saying." This is the crux of effective listening. If you are able to hear what someone isn't saying with genuine intent it is the best gift you can give to someone. It doesn't matter how dire the circumstances are for that person, listening helps beyond any other need. It's rarely the words spoken. It is what is hidden behind the words, behind the mask, behind the facade that matters. You may think that it's all in the ears........ it's never with the ears only. No doubt our hearing abilities can pick up the nuances and the revealing pauses, its the other senses which pick up the intuitive radar that perhaps something is amiss.
When the person has the inability to express verbally what they are thinking, how they are feeling, what they need, their non verbal actions speak for them. The pain may be too intense. There may not be the words to describe it. There may even be a language barrier. Besides most of what is communicated is not verbal........most of what is communicated is non-verbal. If you are genuinely listening, you are taking it all in.........the actions, facial expressions, the pauses, behavioural responses, the tone, the eye contact (or lack of), the silence, the mood. Clothing, posture, the state of someone's fingernails all tells us something. It is all there to be listened to.
Real hunger is shown in the eyes, the stance, the energy............a person doesn't need to tell you verbally. It's there if you are paying attention! If you're listening from your heart, where those big ears of yours are connected to, you will hear the hunger pangs. Stirred yearnings seep out of the pores anxious to be acknowledged. Why do we hesitate to acknowledge??
Please hear what I am not saying. Silence is not often gift wrapped in meditative stillness. Rather it is more likely to be confused rumbling camoflauged as "everything is alright." It is a confusing indirect approach to seeking empathic receptivity and it's frightening for the other person who may have gleaned that their is much more to it that meets the eyes and ears. It may even feel so daunting for another to observe the non-verbals that they don't dare step into the field of landmines for fear that whatever is causing the angst may not be "fixable" in a short burst of attention.
Maybe the person on the receiving end of what is not being said feels like the issue is somehow connected to them and they don't want to open up that "can of worms....." OR maybe that person is just too self absorbed in their own world that helping out a fellow human being is not even considered. Who knows.......... what I am wondering if we are all just a little too inhibited to really listen to another person. We have a tendancy not to step outside of our own cloister more often than we do.
Our inability to listen to others strikes down our ability to show compassion. When our compassion and kindness skips town, all that is left is a mean self centred core of individuals striving for their own brass ring. We have no gift to give another human being if we deprive them of true listening....this is compassion in action. Even if we don't have the answers...even if we don't have a frigging clue how to fix, adjust, mend, listening relays the message that you are sitting right there in their pain. Two sitting together draws strength, even if "sitting together" may mean being miles apart.
Real life trauma is shown in the lack of eye contact, the dishevelled apathy of uncombed hair, dirty clothes, poor hygeine, mumbling regrets. It is shown in the tired skin encasing a worn soul. What happens when the person who feels like they are undeserving realizes that they are being heard? The beginnings of possibility where seeds take root because listening communicates to another......YOU matter.
So often we cant undo or take away someone else's physical pain, or past nightmares as much as we would really like to. All we can give is of ourselves............our empathic listening and encouragement. Recognition of one another deepens connections....and sometimes it helps the other person recognize in themselves that they are worthy and that they are loved.....no matter what.
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Yesterday, I had just spent an intense two hours counselling a young woman who has no words. She smiles and shrugs and sometimes lets her real feelings seep out. I was exhausted from listening and trying to pull her story out of her. I was exhausted too from a long week of work where stresses increased tenfold when it was announced last week that some of my co-workers have had their jobs cut and we were told that more are to come. I don't know what that means, but clearly it may be dire. I was exhausted from trying to juggle many issues swimming in my own head. I had no idea this all showed on my body and face after i had just said good-bye to the young woman and walked into a room filled with Christmas crafts for sale over the lunch hour. But, my friend was paying attention. She was "listening" to what I was not saying...... her concern and compassion carried in the arms she automatically put around me as she asked if I was alright. I didn't even know I was "showing" so much. In one hug, Mary spoke reams to me in her compassionate action, and re-established my footing for the rest of the day. She showed me that I matter. She told me that she understood. Now, if I could only control the tear ducts while standing in the middle of a craft sale......thank you Mary. Thank you for always hearing what I am not saying.
6 comments:
Mary is your TRUE friend.
I LOVED this post Dana. And I know exactly what you are writinf about...Being truly compassionate comes from really listening to it all---The Spoken and The Unspoken--And as you so wonderfully put it--The Body language.
And just think how Mary's compassion in that one hug and whatever else ensued, changed your whole day. How little it takes and yet what a BIG BIG thing true compassion really is!
Judy....Mary is a Godsend. It has been an emotional roller coaster these past couple of years in my work setting and she has been there boosting me up and carrying me whenever i fell to pieces again. I'm now on a different floor and a different team AGAIN and without her daily base touching. She and I are a good team and I hope that one day we'll be given wings again together to set things on fire! Don't know where or when, but between the two of us, I think we can figure out how to harness eachothers gifts.
Naomi....thank you. My thoughts on the listening part derive from the very first lesson I teach in any counselling course. Effective listening unleashes intuitiveness which is THE most important tool in the counselling toolbox.
The thing about working right smack dab in the middle of the frontlines, the sense of family and kindredness grows much more deeply because of the nature of the work. We share more than you would ever in another kind of office setting because we hear so much pain and crisis daily. The need to be alert to others, and to make sure there is a sense of love and belonging within the circle of colleagues is crucial, especially when one is working within systems that make it very frustrating on some days.
Mary is very special....and can read me like a book. :) We have shared mucho mucho....
It's often said that Japanese people are much better at reading the things which are not said. But of course the flip side of this is that in business and social situations people become very, very good at not showing what's really going on inside. Perhaps us English speakers are not so good at either, so maybe we're all busy telling the world things we don't really know how to say but most of the time no one is listening. But praise God for good friends who know how to listen and lift us from whatever circumstances we're going through.
Great thoughts here Kamsin. thank you....we sure do waste a lot of energy expressing ourselves under our "public" masks don't we??
I read somewhere that only 6% of a conversation is the words. There's a lot to listen for that isn't in the words.
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