Listening

This is posted in my first entry of this blog which I will refer to again

"When we honestly ask ourselves
Which person in our lives means the most to us,
we often find that it is those who,
instead of giving too much advice, solutions or cures,
have chosen rather to share our pain
and touch our wounds with a gentle and tender hand.
The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion,
who can stay with us in an hour of grief or bereavement,
who can tolerate not knowing, not curing, not healing,
and face us with the reality of our powerlessness,
that is a friend who cares.
- Henri J. M. Nouwen "Out of Solitude;Three Meditations on the Christian Life"

My thoughts.

I'm sure most if not all of us desire to be understood by others. And we have at one point or other in our lives needed that listening ear to listen to us, perhaps we had a bad day at work or in school, perhaps we just had our hearts broken or rejected by others, perhaps we are grieving over a loss, or perhaps, we are struggling to carry on in life, trying to find that courage to carry on and just simply needed an outlet for someone to listen to our struggles.

Often, many people tries to console others not realising that their perceived good intentions have a very adverse effect on those whom we try to comfort.

We are often quick to attempt to solve other people's problems, giving them advice, solutions, believing that answers, solutions is what others are asking of us when they approach us.

Lines like "What should I do?" "Why did this happen to me?" tug at our heartstrings making us think that if we can give them an answer to their questions we will solve their problems. But it is not always answers they seek when they say that, often, what they need is to know that we are there with them and to acknowledge that it's a terrible time and period that they are going through.

A crying "why?" from someone in pain is not always an invitation to start giving them what we think is the truth or the answer in the world. The truth hurts but it is the truth, or so some people might claim. The "truth" however, when inappropriately said is most unkind and cruel to say the least to the individual whos in pain. It is a lack of understanding and sensitivity to the feelings of the person we address. It is shoving our opinions and perspectives down their throat without a care or thought of how they feel. It is thoughtlessness at its worst.

One might wonder, is that "why?" not a question to be answered? To a grieving widow, a broken-hearted teenager, a person who has lost everything, the answer to the why (why did this happen, why did it happen to me, why did he/she leave...) often simply doesn't matter. It cease to matter because at that point in time, it is their pain that matter to them, for it is their pain that overwhelms them so completely. They are in such terrible pain emotionally and mentally that any answer, no matter how good an answer we might think it is, is of small and cold comfort.

We are not here to take away their confusion, their pain. We are here to be a friend, to let them know we know they're hurting and in pain and we want to be with them, to let them know that they're not completely alone. We are with them, stay with them when they are down, not in front of them so impatiently trying to drag them back up for whatever intentions we think we have.

Many are uncomfortable with people wallowing in self-pity, we want them to snap out of it, pull themselves together, we tell them there's so many other more unfortunate people than them, we want to tell them that they aren't the only ones with problems. We mean well, what we are trying to tell them is that things aren't actually as bad as they perceive but we fail to see just how hurtful and cruel such comments are to them, we fail in making them feel heard or understood and invalidate how they feel in the process. We are too busy in telling them what we think and feel using the almighty good intentions as a reason to justify what we say, rather than truly sit with them and feel and try to understand what they feel.

We are uncomfortable at times with some of the questions they ask. Who are "they"? "They" can be our spouse, our friends, our family, the mentally ill, the people who are grieving, the people who are down, broken-hearted, the list goes on, the common factor is that they want a listening ear, they want to feel heard, to feel understood. We seem to expect ourselves to must have the answers to their questions but it's okay not to have the answers. It is okay to be powerless. To understand that is to go one step in understanding the feelings of hopelessness and helplessness that those who are in depression and in grief feels.

When we tell them that they shouldn't feel that way, they shouldn't feel sad because..., they shouldn't feel angry because.... etc, we are invalidating how they feel. Why should they not have a right to feel what they feel? Why should we deny them what it means to be human?

Would we ever truly understand how they truly feel? Personally I don't think so. We can come close by putting ourselves in their shoes but we're not them. And it is this fact that we have to realise that we are not the ones going through their pain. And that pain is very real and very painful to them.

When they are silent, can we sit with them and stay quiet too? Many of us aren't comfortable with silence. We feel an urge to fill the silence. It is however not words that they want to hear from us, silence is a gift at times. It is a gift of listening, a gift of letting them dwell and explore what they feel.

At the end of the day, the question we have to ask ourselves for those who truly wish to give a listening ear or to be a friend to those in need, have we truly make them feel heard and understood? Have we given them the gift of kindness and understanding, accepting them for who they are. Have we given them the gift of listening?