Today I want to explore a concept that I have wanted to write about for a while. I think it is going to be a little less structured than some of my other posts that I have written to this point, because this is still something I am exploring and experiencing in my own life.
The idea is very simple. There is one true gift that we as humans can give another person. That gift is presence. We manifest this gift through a single, simple act: Listening. Sure, we can give people money, and we can give them time, and we can give them intangibles, like ideas. But all of these things pale in comparison to the gift of active listening. And to be clear, I am speaking of something very specific when I say listening. I don’t mean just hearing what a person says. I mean something much more akin to Imago Dialogue. The act of hearing what a person says, ensuring that you have heard it, validating that what has been described exists, and showing that it is something that you understand; mirroring, validation, and empathy.
Quite simply, generally speaking, there is no person who knows us better than ourselves. And therefore there is no person more suited to solving our own problems, and discovering our own person than ourselves. When we argue, however, we have a tendency to tell other people what they should be experiencing, or what they should be feeling, and that creates a space that says that they are not allowed to exist in the capacity in which they do, indeed, exist.
It can be very difficult for people like myself, who take pride in helping others in a direct way, to sit back and let a person discover their own solutions for themselves, and to provide the type of indirect support that so many people desperately need. But having done it with others, and having had others do it to me, I can tell you there is no more liberating experience than for another person to just let you feel the happiness, sadness, anger, frustration, or whatever, and to sit and be like “yes, you are experiencing this; I see your experience.” The simple act of being able to process or have something you are processing validated can be incredibly transformative. It is very much in the way of Tao Te Ching as it states
When the Master governs, the people
are hardly aware that he exists.
Next best is a leader who is loved.
Next, one who is feared.
The worst is one who is despised.
If you don’t trust the people,
you make them untrustworthy.
The Master doesn’t talk, he acts.
When his work is done,
the people say, “Amazing:
we did it, all by ourselves!”
Hardly aware he exists. This is the sort of feeling that happens when someone allows you to be so authentically yourself through listening, for a brief moment, as you unpack what’s happening, you forget that they are there. You become present with yourself, because they were present for you.
And we did it all by ourselves. That is why I call it a gift. When you are simply present for another and you listen actively, more often than not, peoples’ natural intelligence will shine through and you will see that they will discover answers to the question that burn so deeply for them. In giving them this space, you give them the ability to recapture their own authenticity. There is no more gratifying feeling in the world than to be able to be yourself and to have that existence acknowledged.
All this being said, this requires practice. This is not something that you can just drop into place. While it is a gift that you can give, you have to practice being present for another. You have to practice the 3 steps. There is technique to this very simple act that it should not fool anyone to think that because it is simple, that it is easy. It can be very difficult to be fully present for another person, especially if there are things burning within us to come out, like opinions, or emotions, or what not. When we practice presence, we have to practice understanding that there is an essential goodness to nearly every person, and an essential empathy. If we give them space to be themselves, most mature people will then give us space to be ourselves, and experience any and all issues we may need to experience. So in this way, presence and active listening are very much skills that needs to be cultivated. So practice it every day, with as many people as possible, and then when someone comes along who really needs your presence, it will flow forth in such an effortless manner that you will give them a gift more beautiful and permanent than anything else: your presence for that moment.
Listen often.
Listen deeply.
Be present.
The more we give this gift to each other, the more we become as candles in the darkness, lighting the way for others to move forward for themselves. What a great gift that is.
