The Fine Art of Listening

When I tell you of my experiences, don’t try to explain them away

Justify them or rationalize them,

Pretend they didn’t happen

Or tell me that I shouldn’t feel the way I feel because they have,

That’s dismissive,

And that is not Love

I understand that you might not understand

Because you haven’t experienced it yourself,

I understand that you might want to offer me your perspective,

And I even welcome that because widening perspectives leads to growth and healing,

But before you offer me your perspective,

You have to validate mine

We are grown-ups, full of wisdom and life experience,

We are not eight-year-old children unable to think abstractly or understand

That just because someone else’s experience is different than mine

Doesn’t mean it didn’t happen exactly as they said it did,

Doesn’t mean I need to cry about how it’s unfair

Or try to make everything the same so that it can be fair,

We aren’t all going to get our cookies at the same time,

But we are grown-ups!

We can understand nuances and differences,

We can understand that some people are allergic to peanuts and don’t need to have peanut butter cookies,

We can understand that just because someone else tells you something you’ve never lived through

Doesn’t mean it’s not actually happening to them,

We can hold space for one another and value their experiences and the perspective that it brings them,

And when true injustice—not simple childish unfairness—

Happens to another human being

Even though that injustice has never happened to us,

We can let them tell their stories,

Sit with them in empathy,

And mourn for the fact that it’s happened to them

We can listen,

And we can hear each other,

And maybe then we will grow in love

Because instead of running around trying to tell other people their lives didn’t happen

Since if they did, we might have to change our view of the world and be uncomfortable,

We can soothe another person’s pain by simply listening to their story, recognizing that it’s true,

And telling them

“I’m sorry something so terrible happened to you”

We listen, not to fix it, not to change it

But we fix it and change it by listening,

Because once we listen, once we actually hear,

We can soothe the agony and anger that comes from being unheard,

And we can change our worldview and grow

And maybe, just maybe, if enough of us do this,

Some of these injustices won’t happen anymore

We can make the world better,

We can be okay with differences,

We can truly value one another,

We can start with listening and not making assumptions or comparisons,

We are not eight-year-olds,

We don’t all get to ride in the front seat today,

And sometimes I have to clean my room even though I didn’t make the mess,

And sometimes someone else is going to get the last ice cream cone,

And sometimes someone else is going to taste something I’ve never even heard of

And they’re going to tell me of this flavor and they will describe what it is like

And I will listen

Because I’m a grown up and because I love people,

And I will listen to you

Because I care.