Continuing from a previous post: ‘The Healing Power of Being Deeply Heard’ the book “The Wisdom of Listening” ~ Margaret Truxaw teaches: (edited by Mark Brady):
Simple Listening
Listening skillfully requires us to get out of our own way. This isn’t always easy to do. Listeners frequently have emotions within them touched by what they are hearing, and these emotions distract them from what is being conveyed by the speaker. The listener may be planning how to respond or rehearsing a reply at the cost of concentrated focus. Especially if the listener and the speaker share a personal relationship, the constant can overlap the personal history of both the present itself a source of tangled communication. Conflicting needs can derail the intention to offer a compassionate ear. So how does one listen skillfully? As one teacher summarizes it bluntly to his students. “Shut up and learn to manage your own reactivity.”
One part of learning to listen is simply to stop talking and focus your attention on the speaker. Another part is to take responsibility for the thoughts and feelings that arise reactively and hold them in silent awareness, without judgment, while returning again and again to the intended focus on the speaker. It is much like a meditation practice. I watch my monkey mind try to get control of the conversation. I breathe. And I gently bring my focus back to the focal point of the speaker. I notice when I stray from this intention. I come back again to the focus. And then I do it again. . . and again.
It really is that simple, at the heart of it. However, as one develops the practiced attention on the speaker, a series of skills grow in the service of that attention. One becomes interested in confirming that communication has been well understood. “This is what I understood from what you said. Did I get it right? Active listening can include other ways of drawing forth the authentic self and deepest truth of the speaker, ways which can be developed as skills. . . . (p.51-2)
. . . . Listening to Your Love: Managing one’s own reactivity is especially crucial when the conversation takes place between two people who share a close, caring relationship, whether in intimate partnership or within a facilitated group. In the container of such a relationship, there is potential for great healing when listening is skillfully practiced with loving-kindness. When there is a breach in the intention and attention, the opposite can occur, and there is a potential for eliciting further suffering. Sometimes it is difficult to tell the difference. The process of releasing what has long been held tightly can hurt even as it heals. It requires a constant choice and a disciplined practice on the part of the listener and the sharer to make the most of the opportunities a relationship generates. We are often drawn to a partner who’s complementary issues offer the most challenging, but the most rewarding, mirror for our own growth. Relationship built on a foundation of trust and deep listening is not for the faint of heart. But the rewards are worth the work.
When I am listening to my partner with skill, I can see more clearly which elements of conflict belong to him and which belong to me. If I feel a strong emotional reaction to what he says, it is almost certain that something tender and vulnerable has been touched, and it is useful to note that, when it is my turn to be the speaker. When I am in a conversation without consciousness or care, my subjective reactions can spill out with little control, and listening temporarily comes to an end. When I can tune my attention and awareness to his core dynamic, there is a better chance that the container will be strong enough for deeper healing work to begin. I can see my own needs and wants as well as his. . . . . (p.54)
Freedom from Judgment: When I am deeply heard without judgment, tender heartfelt truths are allowed to emerge. As you listen quietly or mirror my truth to me for confirmation and clarification, I ease into letting go of my attachment or aversion. The knots of energy stuck in my thoughts and feelings become loosened. The illusion that appears to separate me from you, from community, and from the universal divine, begins to dissolve.
Judgement can be tricky. It is simplistic to imagine that judgment will be entirely excluded from a listening practice. Mindful awareness from one’s own reactions helps the listener to avoid the interference of judgment. In our personal and professional listening roles, there are times when it is useful and compassionate to go beyond the silent and reflective into the murky territory where responses may indicate judgment. Or so it seems from the process of chaplain training. When a sharer is capable of receiving and using feedback in the service of wholeness, the mirror of truth can be bolder and more direct, it is crucial to maintain vigilance about one’s own internal experience and motives.
In my own experience of Clinical Pastoral Education residency, making use of the full potential of being deeply heard was a gradual process. When I joined the group, I was hesitant, defensive, and easily bruised by feedback of any kind. My tendency was to polarize to opposite ends of the spectrum of self-judgment. I was either someone set apart in my specialness or someone set apart in my unique woundedness or unworthiness. When the experience of sharing in the group cast light on anything that was inconsistent with the momentary polarization, I would find myself hurtling through mental space toward the opposite pole. These frequent, violent jolts often left me feeling abused and battered, and inhibited any forward movement.
As time went by, the tendency to stay separate by inhabiting the alternating extremes of self-judgment began to soften. The trip back and forth between opposite poles slowed and even paused in the middle more often and for longer periods of time. The middle ground between the extremes holds the potential for accurate self-assessment, freedom, growth and forward movement. My defensiveness in the face of feedback quieted. The container of the group and individual sessions allowed growth toward wholeness. The essence of the healing process involves choosing to express my deepest truth and being deeply heard in response.
Forgiveness: Our spiritual wounds are parts of ourselves that have become disowned or cut off from awareness. When we disown ourselves we become cut off from the universal whole.
Shorthand for the road home to forgiveness, or reconciliation: To return to wholeness, I must find the way to embrace and reconcile the disowned parts back to myself. I can then allow myself to be embraced back into relationship, community, and universal wholeness. The tools of forgiveness lay in listening and in being heard. Forgiveness has many sides. I can ask for forgiveness. I can forgive another. I can witness and facilitate the processes of another reconciliation work. I can rage at God, or the universe, or fate, and I can forgive the object of my rage. And I can forgive myself. What remains unforgiven binds up my energy and cuts me off from the fullness of life. In the work of listening, the opportunities arise for the work of forgiveness to come forth. When I wrestle with blame and shame, being heard can transform my struggle into release.
In spiritual care, reconciliation can refer to a set of interactive steps designed to restore broken relationships. The Catholic Sacrament of . . . Reconciliation or Confession, has historical seeds in the healing practice of listening. . . . . Whether in a formal rite, a conversation between lovers, or a therapy session, the process of conscious forgiveness offers a form of significant and powerful healing.
Reconciliation is a practice and it takes practice. It may take a long time and many interactions of speaking the truth before old wounds are closed and absolution and healing are complete. I may resist some part of the process, I may acknowledge what hurtful things I’ve done, but remain defensive and emotionally aloof. When listening in the service of forgiveness one need not create an agenda for a particular outcome and force the issue. That would depart from the central task of listening. One must listen well and remain open to what unfolds. However, in some schools of thought there is a pattern in the professing transgression and seeing it through to reconciliation. The pattern, modeled after the sacrament requires speaking the truth with sincere contrition and a penitential act, followed by forgiveness, and healing of the breach in the relationship. A skillful listener can facilitate the progress through this process. When the person whom I have wronged is not available, the listener can stand in for that person and respond. In the case of a chaplain (or LDS Bishop) who may hold representational presence for a deity . . . spiritual authority, there is a responsibility to bring skillful, conscious awareness to the healing potential of the reconciliation process. ~ Margaret Truxaw (edited by Mark Brady) ~(199 Elm Street, Somerville MA 02144 USA, www.wisdompubs.org ©by Mark Brady 2003) p 54-56 (end—For the previous post of this of this series, click:“The Healing Power of Being Heard”
