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Posts tagged ‘Being heard’

Feb 21

Semi-Rant

Death can numb us physically, mentally, spiritually, and emotionally. Most people don’t die without it affecting others with some level of trauma. Think about it. Even the person who dies in their sleep can have a partner wake up with a dead body beside them. There is trauma in this. 

While birth can be a joy-filled time, death isn’t. Sure, we might be thankful that they are out of pain, no longer suffering in other ways, or “at peace.” Death leaves the living with the reality of feeling and doing what we need to do to get through it and move forward. We can behave poorly after a death. Remember, we’re in no condition to think straight. Whether we realize it or not, we’re in the twilight zone. We’re not ourselves. We’re in the death bubble. Sooner or later, we’ll need to exit that bubble and get back on the conveyor belt of life.

Getting through the process is about reconfiguring our new lives to work without the loved one, or not-so-loved-one, in our lives. We’ll miss the former and think we can get on just fine without the latter—until something doesn’t go quite right. Then we’re facing the whatever it is and making it right. 

Anything can happen. Parents don’t think kids are grieving correctly; kids feel or think a parent should get over it; grandkids miss the grandparent who the parent is celebrating the death of, and they are numb to themselves and each other. 

All of a sudden, rifts develop; people once invited are uninvited, and people fight over petty things. What was not resolved in life becomes a nightmare for those who remain. There is more numbing, and it seems that we no longer notice the real pain. By now it might be all about anger, loss, and a grief we can’t speak of because those we thought would be there to hear our pain ran out on us to escape into their own pain. It’s a cycle, and it only resolves itself when someone says to themselves or others, “ENOUGH!!!!” 

If we’re lucky to have someone with the insight to call out the crazy, we might just get to a new place with it. That person may be you. You may be the only fix that there is. The reality of it all is that we can only fix ourselves. The great personal thaw means that you engage with yourself in the healing process. This can be the greatest challenge of all: to heal when no one else gets the repair work you are doing. 

In the seven years I’ve been dealing with my own grief and loss, and the pain of others, I’ve seen and heard some really painful stuff. I’ve asked myself why people move on too quickly and don’t do the work that would lead them to true peace, and then I think about the crazy of it all. 

Is it possible to have burnout from grief? Can someone burn out from too much pain? I think they can. I recall a health course I took in the fall semester of my second year of university work. I was sitting next to two guys as we all filled in the stress scale the professor had distributed. In the period of one year, I’d gone through two significant family deaths, made a major life change, and had checked a few other boxes. I looked at them; they looked at me, and all three of us realized that our scores were much too high to be normal. It was the nonverbal, silent signal of knowing. I wasn’t in my right mind. What was I doing there? At the end of that year, I moved home, found a therapist, and began to sort out my head. Looking back on all of it now, I realize that I’d had enough physically, spiritually, emotionally, and mentally. I was so deep into grief that I didn’t know how deep I was into grief. I came out of it, and now understand the crazy. 

I believe that one of the things that saves us from yelling at others to get over it is that when we do the work of getting through it, we’re gifted with the understanding of the hard work that must be done. We’re able to hold compassion for the crazy place grief, loss, trauma, and burnout can carry us into. 

The work begins with a desire to pop the bubble of denial, and to seek for better ways of facing our pain. 

For some people, death is death: it is what happens at the end of life. It is what it is. For another group of people, death opens up a need to make sense of the existential mystery of why it might have happened. For yet a third group of people, they engage the theodicy mind trap. I’m sure there are other possibilities. It is to theodicy that I’ll turn my focus. 

Is it any wonder people turn from God when God gets abused? The use of theodicy— a way of explaining why God allows evil to happen—to explain loss, pain, and stuff that happens for unexplainable reasons can drive a soul mad. I understand that there are people who abuse, and even purposely damage, their own children. It is wrong, and I hope that such abusers are discovered and dealt with, and that their children are given a chance to live better lives. Children don’t sign up for mistreatment. Theodicy is a form of mistreatment, and is spiritually disrespectful to all human beings. Higher powers do not create death to teach someone a lesson, take someone because they are needed someplace else, expect us to bypass the grief process and focus on an afterlife, or cause intentional suffering (for instance, the birth of a disabled child). 

Tragic things happen, and we must face them honestly. Nature does strange things to bodies, and we must accept nature doing its thing. The human gene is a tricky thing, and we can be brought up short by the screwy things our genes do. Early in life I had to learn that nature behaves in unruly ways. It just is. That being said, I’ll return to the stuff that can be controlled. 

I can, and need, to control my own behavior. I can decide to behave kindly towards others in pain. As difficult as it is during the process of grief, loss, painful experiences, and whatever else I experience, I can choose to apologize, show compassion, and make amends as needed. In the end it takes less energy to show kindness to myself and others. It also keeps my brain well balanced. I’ll cry, scream, get angry, look in the mirror, face down the monsters, and make peace with it all. In the long run, that will serve me well.

This has been a nice semi-rant. I hope you learned from it.

Aug 4

Revisiting Being Heard

This blog has a title that dates back to an incident with my husband’s psychiatrist. At the end of our conversation, when I thanked him for listening to me, he replied, “You needed to be heard.” His acknowledgement that this issue had to be addressed was huge for me. I left his office with my husband and realized that I had a title for the blog I was working on publishing. That exchange created a bridge of trust with me. I would need that trust as the years went on.  

That one incident opened me up to a new understanding of how validation through truly hearing with the heart and mind can alter someone’s life path. A good decade or so later our exchange still stands out in my mind. That doc really took the time to hear, respond, and accept my truth.  

Having said all of this, I’d like to share more on this subject as it relates to another healing moment in my life.  

Something happened to me after Jon’s death that was so hurtful I had to put it on the back burner for two years. I won’t share what happened because to do so would expose several people who, to this day, think they did a really great thing. It wasn’t a great thing. In 2019 I began to address that hurtful act. It took one year to completely resolve the issue. It wasn’t fun, and I’m glad it’s over.  

The catch—and there always is a catch—is that I had a well of pain that was connected to people’s behavior towards me. That wasn’t so easy to wipe out of my mind, or to repair. The reason why is that several misguided people thought that they were helping me in my loss when they were, in fact, doing great damage. The key to the resolution was, and is, gaining enough perspective over time to be able to step back and decide how to best handle the matter.  

This is complex in that telling someone what they’ve done isn’t always the best resolution for them. They most likely won’t view the event in the same way that you do, or have the insight to think it through. You might come up against strong resistance when explaining how hurtful such actions are. I tested things out with one of the parties involved. This person couldn’t understand why I was so angry. I realized that it was not productive to force the issue.  

The rage and pain were very much present. What can you do in a situation like this? 

Death rearranges the address book. In my case, Jon’s death did a grand Viennese Waltz through the pages of my book. People who I believed to be friends disappeared. Family who couldn’t cope with my new reality disappeared. It left me staring at once-full pages wondering how—and if—I could rebuild with new people in my life. It served as a witness that grief, and the lack of comfort others have with it, brings great pains to those who must walk through the lonely terrain.  

Fortunately, I’ve begun to build a community of new friends who view life as I do. I’ve paid a steep price for these new beginnings. It was towards this new group of people, who are becoming friends, that I turned, seeking a listening ear. But I needed more than just a listening ear; I needed to be fully heard. I found that person. I was heard in a genuine and caring manner. It allowed me to let go.  

Not being heard can cause someone to become stuck in the quagmire of pain, loss, anger, trauma, disappointment, and so many other things that I won’t list here. Not being fully heard can cause us, as humans, to shut things down, to cling so tightly to the pain in our souls that we can’t find the ladder out of the quagmire.  

Being heard—and truly hearing another person—may require that we face some painful places in our own souls while accompanying them through a darkness they want out of.  

Being heard means opening ears and stopping the responding and questioning, in order to allow for understanding. Hearing and being heard involve authentic empathy from the person doing the hearing. It is a skill.  

I am by no means perfect at doing this. Sometimes I blow it. When I realize I’ve blown the “hearing,” I go back, apologize, and work even harder at doing a better job during the next hearing.  

If you’ve been fully heard, you understand that one of the feelings that opens up for a person in this process is liberation! We are liberated from our burden, the trauma, the pain, the struggle of the choice we’re making—we’re set free to explore new and colorful options. Maybe we are enabled to take that first step on a road to someplace new. This hearing might allow us to stop the repeating “sound bite blasting” in our heads about what we could—or should—have done.  

Being heard entirely is a gift. It is one that we unwrap with joy, understanding that it is not as common as it should be. It frees our spirits, calling us forward to new ground. It opens us to new relationships of understanding and trust. When we engage in the power of complete hearing, it changes us because our views and hearts are altered. We can no longer choose to unhear or not see what we’ve become a witness to. Each time a person is truly heard, it changes the world.   

Feb 25

The Gift of Being Heard

I’ve spent many hours listening to and being listened to. I’ve communicated, at least on some superficial level, what I meant to say. I pause to listen, to tune in, but in my haste, I fail to hear the real sound that I am in need of hearing. I listen, but fail to hear.

You can learn listening skills that will, if you practice them, enable you to not “spring” too soon. You can learn to clarify what is being said, and the person on the other end of the conversation may come away feeling as if they communicated successfully.

We listen inquisitively, we listen out of curiosity, we listen in hopes that if we do so it will somehow all be over and we can say “I listened to you. What more do you want from me?” We listen with resentment and fear. We don’t really want to know. We listen passively. We practice “active listening.” We justify all of this as doing a good bit of what we perceive listening and hearing to be.

At the end of the person’s sharing, they may be frustrated by the lack of listening we displayed. Maybe they are right. Maybe we blew it all off, tuned ourselves out. Maybe we did a “good enough” job of listening, but it wasn’t good. Maybe we got lucky. Maybe they left feeling a bit better for having spent the time in conversation. They might feel any of the above, or they might feel something else, and we might not be given the chance to find out just how we did during that conversation. There are times when we only get one shot at listening and turning it into truly hearing what the other person is telling us.

Each conversation is a one-shot deal. It is my observation that for most of us, we spend time listening, but not hearing. Hearing is an art and most of the time we fail to do it very well. Hearing is acknowledging what is left unsaid, as well as the spoken portion. Hearing is seeing and feeling the richness of the soul. Hearing can be like unwrapping a gift box. There are no courses for hearing. There are only times in our lives when we are the person who hears in fullness and the person that is fully heard. These are the times that we remember most. To fully hear and be heard: to grock it (Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein). This knowing is what hearing and being heard is all about: to have a fullness of understanding and to view the “gestalt,” or the picture in its entirety.

Recalling the conversation that sparked this blog title isn’t essential. The last comment, however, was the true gift: the gift that told me that for a brief moment in time, I mattered to this person. “You needed to be heard.” Those words became significant. That one sentence caused my soul to change. I had been given the gift of being heard and I knew it.

Hearing it Physically

Music is a major part of my life. I listen, I sing, and yet I don’t hear all of its richness due to a hearing loss. I can hear harmonies, but not the richness that is present. I miss what the composer intended that I hear. If I use headphones I can hear more, but not all of the richness that is present. Headphones can be a pain. To hear the richer and fuller sounds of the music, I must wear them. I must use them when I Skype. I must be tuned into the other person.

Recently I decided that I needed to revisit the hearing instrument market. I had worn one such gadget from the mid ’80s to the late ’90s. The gadget was big and not very effective. When I moved to Germany, I stopped wearing it. I would live without hearing because it felt better to not have that gargantuan thing in my right ear. I would also be rid of the background noises that were not wanted. Hearing was not pleasant.

Life changed and I needed to see if I could introduce a better quality of hearing pleasure into my daily experience. I found a center that does thorough screening for hearing loss and took that information to the techie who would do the actual work of finding the proper gadget for my sorry state of being. I didn’t feel very hopeful. My past experience was foremost in my mind.

The next week something wonderful happened: I heard a conversation and didn’t have to ask the person to repeat what was said. This was novel!!!! There were no raised voices. The experience was beautiful. Listening was effortless. I could once again hear the world around me.

I began to explore and found that I could have background music on and still hear!!!! I could listen as our three cats munched down their meals. Cats are noisy when they munch. I could listen to the sound of the water, which had always seemed so quiet. Once the initial adjustment to hearing old sounds in new ways passed, I was happy. I was excited about having something else switched on. That switch was triggered a week later.

That next Monday, my music-listening program went live. I heard music in a new way. I was ecstatic. I could hear notes that had gone missing!!! The guy told me about some technology that would enhance my hearing experience to even greater heights. I had him order the “Mini Tek.” NOW I WAS EXCITED! Oh, to hear the world in ways it was meant to be heard!

This gadget Mini Tek enables the user to have the sound transmitted directly to the hearing instrument. I would have a clear stream of beautiful noise!!!! I would be tuned in precisely!!!! I would hear my phone conversations while out and about and not have to ask the speaker to repeat themselves. Life was getting to be a bit of heaven on earth… UNTIL I found out that the insurance, which was paying for thousands of Euros of hearing pleasure, would not cover this 300 Euros of enhancement technology, and I was faced with having to return the box that I had only hours before opened so excitedly.

Returning that box to the Beter Horen (we’re now in Holland) was one of the most depressing days of my life. I asked my husband Jon to do it because I was too depressed, too sick in my heart of hearts, to take it back. So, for now the gift of really hearing music and out of the house phone conversations is not happening. For now it is hard, but not as hard, to hear. But this is just about physical hearing and not about the needful hearing.

The Gift Box

Fortunately, for the true hearing of the soul I don’t need a hearing instrument. I don’t need a Mini Tek; I need an open heart that is tuned to the correct frequency of another’s heart. The transmission will be clear. I will be shown what I am meant to see and hear. That is what the gift of being heard is all about.

The gift of being heard is about feeling the soul. We must not only hear the words of the heart, but we must see the landscape of the soul. Only with both true hearing and clear vision can we understand and grant the gift. Only then can we hope to understand the rich soul-scape that awaits us. Only then will we rejoice and be thankful that we unwrapped and shared the gift of being heard.