Genuinely Listen

I am thankful for people who ask, “How are you?”, and then make eye contact and genuinely listen to your answer! Of course, this is opposed to people who ask, “How are you?”, and then while you’re starting to answer, walk away or start talking to someone else.  

     Wanda Jacobs

 Listening well and focusing without distraction is one of the hardest – but most significant – gifts that we can give to others.  Yet, most of us don’t do it very well.  It’s hard to be intentional about putting all other disturbances aside and truly concentrating on another’s feelings, well-being, emotions and needs.  It’s hard to listen, at times, to someone else’s pain, disappointment, fear and brokenness.  It can make us uncomfortable and uneasy. 

 But, if we truly want to engage in another’s life and support them in the most caring and compassionate way it is a gift that we need to develop and use.  It speaks volumes about the person who is able to do that well.  It says to the other person:

 Your pain is my pain.

 Your suffering is my suffering.

 Your sorrow is my sorrow.

 Your joy is my joy.

 Your passion is my passion.

 Your delight is my delight.

 We all know too well the disappointment when others do not take the time to listen to us, to really hear what we have to share, to enter into those very common experiences of being human.  We know what it feels like to have someone walk past us when we are on a lonely road by ourselves.  We know what it’s like to have someone “listen”, but not really listen.  We also know what it’s like to have someone ask questions without waiting for a response. 

 Yet on the opposite end of the equation, we also know what it’s like for someone to really listen, to really empathize with our situation, to really try to understand just what we are going through when we really need it. 

 This is an area for all of us to continually strive to be fully present in the moment, with the person right before us, eye to eye, face to face, heart to heart, soul to soul.  When that can happen it can transform us.  It can empower us.  It can sustain us.  It can help to heal us.  It can give us new life and hope and peace again. 

 Our friend Wanda and her husband Roy are going through a very challenging time.  They are faced with a life-threatening diagnosis, one which is changing their lives – forever.  They know what it’s like to feel dismissed, forgotten, overlooked and avoided.  That is a very lonely feeling. 

 But they also know what it’s like to feel that someone else gets it, feels it, shares in it and enters into it with them.    That feeling is beyond words, full of grace and generosity, full of comfort and care.  That is a feeling we all want to have, need to have, in our moments of distress and in our times of joy.

Photo by saeed karimi on Unsplash