Want to give someone a gift?

Listen

“Because listening can bring about such powerful healing, it is one of the most beautiful gifts that people can give and receive.”

                                       Carl A. Faber (On Listening)

Listening without judgment is a gift for both giver and receiver. What seems a simple thing, however, is not at all. We, as listeners, want very much to move the one speaking in the direction of our own views and values—which is why listening without judgment is such a rarely given gift. We move very quickly from listening to advising. I know this first hand—even as a counselor, supposedly impartial, I had a hard time listening without giving advice. And most of us love our own opinions to such a degree that we think we owe it to the speaker to set them right.

True listening, the kind that provides the environment for healing, allows the speaker to carry responsibility for their life, and create their future through action and vision. We create our reality by the very things we believe to be true. Our view of the world becomes our world. My view of the world may be radically different from yours, and therefore, unreality for you. My advice to you may or may not color your reality. You have your own. When we take responsibility for someone else's life, and begin to advise, we have stopped listening.

When we attempt to convince someone else that our view of the world is the correct one, the one they should adopt, we have moved from listening to manipulating. This happens most often when the person in question is someone we love and want to spare hardship and pain. We want to shield them from the consequences of their decisions—largely because we don't want to experience their pain vicariously. But, making choices and living with their consequences is the heart and soul of consciousness. We learn far more from our mistaken choices than from our successes. Would you take that opportunity away from someone you love?

Listening to another without judgment helps them listen to themselves. Listening to oneself is as important to healing as the impartial listening of another. Many of us have been taught to speak only what is acceptable; to not say what is unpleasant but true. When we have permission to speak authentically, and hear truth come from our own mouth, it becomes more substantial—we hear the anger or the pain, the regret. We look at it more honestly when someone else looks at it, too, and does not judge, or try to rearrange, to make it more acceptable.

Healing happens when we accept ourselves with all our flaws—radical acceptance is key. Listening without judgment—to ourselves and to others—is a gift that moves us toward that healing.

                                         In the spirit,

                                            Jane