Difficult Seasons

Sometimes my assignment is just to listen.

The patient has something they want to say, something he has been working through for some time.  He needs someone who will appreciate what he has to say to sit and listen, to help make it real.

Interestingly, what he has to say is often something I need to hear for where I am in life.

Yesterday one of those times happened.  I walked into a room, introduced myself, and the patient just started in.  It was quickly obvious that he was delivering a well thought out philosophy about his life.  Sprinkled in were facts about his life, good stuff and bad.  But mostly he was telling me about attitudes and deeply held beliefs that he had developed to help him navigate life, especially in those times of great uncertainty such as he is currently facing.

One of his life principles is to live with the anticipation that each day is going to be a great day.  He told me that when he did, that it was amazing how often it was a great day, no matter what might be happening.  He said that it made tomorrow so much easier, like rolling on a round tire, rather than a square one.

He talked about the abundance of blessings in his life, physical and relational.  He also talked about rock-bottom times.  He said that if he wanted to accept the good things, he also needed to be able to accept the difficult.

He and his wife both exuded joy, in abundance.

What he had to say was important to him.  It turns out that it was really good stuff, helpful to me.  But even if it hadn’t been, even if I hadn’t agreed with what he had to say, it would have been important to listen just as intently to validate him as a person, to be an appreciative audience as he rehearsed his strongest inner beliefs and feelings.

That’s how important listening is.  I was again taught that talking is a highly over-rated ministry tool, and that listening is highly under-rated.

Tonight I had the opportunity to speak to the chapel class at First Colony Church of Christ.

My subject was “Three Ways to Help People Heal.”  Here’s the outline, with links to some blog posts where I’ve discussed the points.

Jesus, the Great Healer, is our model.  (John 8:1-11, Luke 7:36-50)

• He saw.
• He loved.
• He listened.
• He was non-judgmental.
• He offered hope.

1.  Be Present (Jesus saw people.  “Simon, don’t you see this woman?”)

• In person, on the phone, by email, on Facebook, with a text message, with a card or note.
• Be fully focused on them for the time you’re with them.

2.  Project that you like them no matter if they’re physically, emotionally, and/or spiritually not at their best.

• A real smile.
• Eye contact.
• Touch.
• You can do this in person, but you can also do it on the phone, by email, on Facebook, in a text, or in a note.

3.  Listen non-judgmentally (“let him who is without sin cast the first stone”, “neither do I condemn you”).

• Listen to their story.
• Let your body language and words indicate that you heard their story, that you love them, that you care.
• Don’t tell your story or someone else’s story in response.
  • Their story deserves the full spotlight!
  • Telling your story says that you only value their story because you have a story, that theirs is not really important.
• Don’t tell them what they did wrong (they already know).
• Don’t tell them what they should do.
  • That screams, “You’re wrong because you’re not doing what I think you should do.”
  • It’s not your job to fix them.  God is much better at that than you can ever be.

Let God do the heavy stuff.

• Pray.
• Don’t get in the way.
• Point to Him.

Once every week or two, I scan tweets from Twitter that contain the word “grieving.”  Mostly I’m just “listening.”  People tend to be more open about talking about their grief on Twitter on on their blogs than face to face.  Sometimes I’ll follow a link and discover someone who is writing about their grieving process.  It’s a good learning experience.

Today when I scanned the list of tweets, I was  struck by the variety of what people were grieving.

One guy was grieving the loss of his Mercedes.  He’d sold it.  Another person was grieving not having an iPhone.  Apparently he’d never had one, but wanted one.

In stark contrast, there were a number of people grieving the loss of a loved one.  One that caught my attention was a person who wrote about being half way through the grieving process:  they’d had the viewing and the funeral was the next day.  Of course we know that’s not half way.  In fact we never know how far along we are in the process.  It reminded me how when we’re inexperienced in grieving, we tend to focus on the formal ceremonies as the time of grief.  But also, many of us seem to expect people that are grieving to “get over it” soon after the funeral, which probably feeds the misunderstanding.

Finally, two points from this rambling post.

1. People need to talk about their grieving.  It’s often difficult to do so face to face, so many people do their processing on social media platforms like Twitter or a personal blog.
2. Not only do people need to talk about their grieving, they need people who will listen.  Who do you know that is grieving?  How can you give them a chance to talk about it while you just listen?

Real Exchange from Our Caregiver Support Group:

Me:  “How’s your daughter been this week?”

Mom:  “Good.  We’re going on a cruise together.  She made the reservations, but then told me early Tuesday morning that she couldn’t find her birth certificate so she couldn’t get her passport, along with a list of several other things that were overwhelming her.  But when I talked to her after lunch, she had gotten everything done!”

There are two important things this mom did well that we can all learn from.

1.  She listened to, but didn’t offer to do for, her daughter.  Listening empowered her daughter by allowing her to process with someone what she needed to accomplish.  Her daughter got the satisfaction of accomplishing these tasks herself.  Taking over and doing these things for her daughter, who was capable of doing them for herself, would prove to be enabling negative behavior.

2.  She listened, but didn’t feel the need to react to or give advice on her daughter’s list and frustration.  In most situations, listening is sufficient.  It was the gift the daughter needed.  She didn’t need someone to tell her what she already knew all too well:  that she should be able to handle these tasks, that she shouldn’t let herself become frustrated, that if she would just get after doing them, that everything would be fine.

One of our class members summarized all of this a little more bluntly:  “Just keep your mouth shut.”

And in my experience, this is good advice.  When you just listen and keep your mouth shut, you allow for two good things to happen.  First, the person may with more time come up with an appropriate solution on his own.  Second, you’ll have time to process what she’s told you and develop a thoughtful response rather than just shooting from the hip.

In fact if you’ll stop and think about it, I bet you too will realize that a lot of your caregiving problems occur because you haven’t followed this advice.

Join me in resolving to listen more and talk less.

Becoming a good listener is a life-long quest.  It requires effort, focus, and mastery of skills.  While some of us seem to be better equipped to be good listeners naturally, all of us can become better listeners if we work at it.

Listening in a way that we really comprehend what the other person is trying to communicate and so that they feel heard is challenging.  There are lots of reasons for that:

• The words actually spoken reveal only a small part of the message.
• The tone in which they are spoken and the body language with which they are spoken including the facial expressions actually convey most of the message.
• All of us tend to only communicate partial messages in conversation.  Getting the rest of the message requires questioning, clarification, and other conversational interchanges.
• Actual communication is taking place on multiple levels.  If we’re just tuned in to the surface level, we likely miss the most important part of what’s being said.

Here are five basic listening skills that will carry you a long way.

1.  Rapport Building is establishing an emotional connection of trust at the outset of a conversation.  Smiling, maintaining eye contact, and synchronizing your body language and pace of your speech to the other person help enhance rapport.

2.  Paraphrase is saying back to the speaker in your own words what you heard the speaker say.  Paraphrase helps you be sure that what you heard is what the speaker meant to say, and it conveys to the speaker that you’re really interested.  It’s the “What I heard you say was…” tool.

3.  Asking productive questions invites the person to provide information they would like to share, helps fill in missing information, and check out possible distortions.  Curiosity is your biggest asset here.  It’s also one of the primary ways we show the person that we’re interested in them.

4.  Behavior description (body movement, physical changes, or tone of voice, as well as actual verbal quotes) helps you distinguish between what you are inferring and what the person is saying.  For example, if someone says “I’m fine,” but they’re tearing up as they say it, saying “I heard you say that you’re fine, but your tears suggest that there may be more going on,” provides an opportunity to go deeper by giving them permission to speak freely.

5.  Perception check is a way of testing your perception (guess) about what you believe the speaker is feeling.  Making a perception check lets the speaker know that you are sensitive to their inner emotional condition.  Since you’re just guessing, always phrase your statement tentatively.  “I’m guessing that based on what you’ve told me that you’re feeling pretty discouraged.  Is that close?”

So, these five tools comprise your basic toolbox for listening.  And remember, practice makes perfect you better.

Photo Credit: Amarand Agasi