Did you know that the words “Listen” and “Silent” are spelled with the same letters? Obviously no coincidence 😊. So, to me that means that in order to listen you have to be silent. You are not trying to fix or find the words to respond to what is being said. There is no mental chatter, you are simply listening.
Lately, I’ve been aware of how seldom people actually listen. For example, have you ever noticed when people ask you a question and as you respond they interject with another question and then another question. Is that listening? To me, it’s not. Listening is just being completely present with the person who is sharing something.
When I first got into coaching, I felt like a fraud. Like I had to put on a show and say the most amazing thing ever so people were amazed by me. As I evolved and realized who I am, putting the costume of “fraud” aside (which still shows up at times- let’s be real), I realized that my strength lied in the fact that when I listen, I am creating the space my clients were paying me for. The space for them to be heard so the healing can come.
I’m sharing this because I’ve started to question what are we afraid of? What is our resistance, as human beings, to not listen? What is it that prevents us from being teachable? Why do we think listening means to constantly validate the person speaking?
As a teacher, I remember taking a professional development course in listening. OMG it was so uncomfortable. They had us engage in active listening practices where one person would speak for a minute and their partner would just listen. Just LISTEN. You couldn’t nod, say “hmmmm” under your breath, definitely couldn’t verbally sympathize. You listened while someone spoke for a full minute. Needless to say, as a notorious people pleaser (at that time at-least) it was awkward. I was awkward. It was so challenging for me to allow the other person to be vulnerable without me swooping in to ensure them that they were not alone.
Fast forward a few years. Today, I cannot stand if I am sharing something, especially when I just need to release energy and someone interrupts me. It is like they are throwing logs into my powerful stream of consciousness which blocks me and then pushes down the energy that is needing to be released, or that I’m consciously trying to let out. So, all of the “yeah yeah yeahs” may be nice when you are having a conversation but when someone is asking to share something, your commentary isn’t helpful. And then, don’t get me started on the “omg me too _____.” When we share something, and we all have one friend who does this, as we share they say “omg me too” and then break into their own story. Is that helpful? Is that listening? To me, that is not listening. Especially, if you consciously are asking a friend if they have space for you to share.
My mentor once shared that as a country, we are immature. We are the youngest country and we act like it. I believe she shared that we are in our adolescent stage energetically screaming out “this is mine! no this was mine first.” I think we are all scared to listen because we fear whats really going on. Well, in the past few years so much in this country has come to surface. We all have to look at it and yet so many things are hidden under the rug. I keep wondering why we are a country that hands out medicine like they are M&Ms, why we find this new thing or this new thing to mask what is going on beneath the surface. Why don’t we go within? What are we really afraid of?
Now, think about this… We have so much shit going on in our society, we are uprooting so many dysfunctional things about how our world has been operating and yet some of us don’t know how to speak to our children. Can you imagine what is going on for them during this time of great transition? Can you imagine what they must be feeling? What they are experiencing? So many kids are experiencing symptoms of depression, contemplating suicide and I wonder how many of them actually have an adult to talk to? Not a mental health professional (although that would be good) but who is taking the time out of their day to speak to them?
Yesterday, I spoke with a friend who shared that a boy in her community (he’s a high school student) was sitting by the pool in their apartment complex getting high. She said hello to him and he said, “I don’t mean to be rude, but I’m high and not in the space to talk because my friend committed suicide last night.” She said he told her that he was thinking about committing suicide himself which is why he didn’t pick up his friends phone call the night before because he didn’t want to bother him with his own depressive thoughts. My heart breaks as I think about what this kid must be going through. He now believes that if he picked up his friends phone call the friend wouldn’t have committed suicide. Therefore, he believes he’s responsible.
My friend asked if she thought she should call his mother, make sure that he’s ok and that he knows there are people in the community who care about him. Then, she said to me “maybe rather than them getting high I can teach them about meditation. Naturally, I would ask them this when they weren’t high to see if it’s something they’d like to do.” I told her this, which is something I’ve been sharing with teachers…
Meditation is excellent, I stand behind it and I meditate daily (or try to). In this case, as is the case for so many children today, they just need someone to talk to. Someone who will listen. Not give advice, just listen. They have so much to say and may feel that their parents are too busy to listen to them, they have their own stuff going on and issues the kids can perceive. Teachers also are overworked, underpaid and by May are just counting down the days for school to end. Kids feel and know all of this and they have SO much, so much going on that we can’t comprehend because most of us didn’t have access to social media or the internet, or podcasts, when we were younger. There are so many taboo subjects out there- me too, abortion, police brutality, environment, global warming, and we are asking students to pretend (subliminally we are), pretend this is not going on and we wonder why young kids are committing suicide or bringing guns to schools.
I heard a story of a woman whose son was getting bullied, she noticed his decline, him trying to fit in, looking defeated each morning before school started. She didn’t know what to do and a spiritual teacher told her “He has a lot to say.” So she took him on a car ride, parked the car and just let him speak.
So, if you could do one thing today, for your child, your student, your friend or anyone. LISTEN. We all have a lot to say. Let whoever needs to say something say it. Don’t try to fix it, don’t try to console, let them just let it all out.
Thank you for reading
