All Ears

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I don't want to discuss how any of you feel about Hillary Clinton, but I am personally intrigued and inspired by what some websites are terming her 'Global Listening Tour'.  If true, not only do I think this is a good international relations strategy, but I think it could be a lesson to all of us in our own personal relationships, in our marriages, with our children ... well, just across the board in every part of life.

All of us need someone to listen to us.  How many times have we all felt that brewing explosion of emotion simmering near the top of our volcanic brains just waiting to erupt?  If only there were some way to get it out.  Some way to say what needs to be said.  Someone with whom we could openly and transparently speak.  We all need to express ourselves.  Freely.  Genuinely.  With reckless abandon.  And we all need someone to be on the other end of that free expression to catch our thoughts, hear us when or even before we reach our boiling point -- whether that boiling is out of frustration or out of joy.

This is a grand service we can give to one another.  The service, the art of listening.

Listening does not mean fixing.  
Listening does not mean solving.  
Listening does not mean justifying.
Listening does not mean slandering.
Listening does not mean gossiping.
Listening does not mean judging.

Listening means... well... listening.  Mouth shut, ears open, head nodding up and down, voice box rattling with the occasional 'uh huh', 'hmmm', 'I understand', or 'I'm so sorry'.  There is time for processing later.  Time for fixing the problem later.  Time for explanations and reducing the facts later.  Time for controlling emotions later.  Listening is for the here and now in the heat of the moment through the tears and the pain through the joy and the excitement through the cluttered, scattered, brain downloading, stream of consciousness that is genuine self-expression.

If only we would listen instead of trying to give advice.  If only we would listen instead of formulating our next response while the other person talks.  If only we would listen and truly hear what the person is saying; hear what their background implies; hear what their culture requires them to say.  If only we would make the effort to quiet our own selves, keep our opinions temporarily under wraps, let the other person talk and talk and talk freely without fear.  If only... 

Listening.  I am striving to be a better listener.  Be less of a fixer.  Be more of a 'I'm here for you' kind of gal.  I'm leaving the fixing to God.  Leaving the responsibility off my own shoulders.  But the listening I want to learn to do.  The quiet eye contact between two friends.  The reassuring hug at the end of a good cry.  The wall off of which things can be bounced.  The safe place to which people can turn when the going is rough or when the going is great.

I want to be here.  I want my own Global Listening Tour to begin and never end.  We all need someone to listen to us and I want to take up that challenge to be one of those people.  Now. Today. Forever.

~lk

Comments

liz said…
ok leah...... here i come !!!
10:07 AM
Queen of Beaverton said…
Leah, that was so powerful Thank you.
12:12 PM
Matt Deane said…
The best part of this post?

"I don't want to discuss how any of you feel..."
2:47 PM
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