Human nature
Our authentic nature is the natural child. Young children are amazing when they feel good! They’re creative, flexible, powerful, loving, cooperative, full of ideas, energy, and enthusiasm, and they learn remarkably fast. Tiny children are incredibly effective at making relationships with anybody. A tiny child on a good day is so attractive you can’t help falling in love with them. That’s just the way they are.
We are like this intrinsically.
We get hurt
But when we go about our daily lives, we don’t see many people who look as lively and out, interested, engaged and enthusiastic as a tiny child on a good day! So clearly, something happens to us, so we lose that innate joy that we had once.
This loss is tragic.
What happens is we get hurt. It’s hard to think straight when you’re hurting, and you may do silly things that hurt yourself or others. It’s hard to be sensible if you’re frightened, embarrassed, angry, sad, bored or misinformed.
When you are in a situation which reminds you of a time when you were hurt, your thinking shuts down again. For example, you went out one day and tripped on an uneven path. Afterwards, you’re more wary when walking than necessary.
Systemic Hurts
Many hurts are systemic. For instance, most women have heard practically from birth that being beautiful and accommodating is crucial. They see impossible standards of “beauty” and then feel inadequate, which is very hurtful and totally unnecessary. (This hurt feeds a voracious industry to fill the artificial gap.)
Most men learn that the real thing about being a man is to be courageous, never show vulnerability or cry, and endure pain stoically. So-called games like Rugby and Football simulate war. Go out there and get and inflict hurt, but laugh about it because you’re a man.
Men get hurt, too. The ultimate image of a man is a warrior. What do you have to do to a man to convince him that the essence of being a man is to kill other men and accept being killed by them?
Healing through Listening
The above would be incredibly sad if it were the whole truth. It is not!
When you talk to somebody who is deeply listening to you about something troublesome and maybe hurtful and express your painful feelings, you think and feel better afterwards. You can express these feelings by talking. You may also laugh, cry, sweat, shake, have a tantrum or yawn. These mechanisms of emotional release happen naturally and are healing.
A story
When I went to school, I asked many challenging questions and was often in trouble. I had to wait outside the headmaster’s study. He then caned me for being impertinent. It was painful and humiliating.
Later, I found talking to senior people in organisations incredibly difficult. Seeing somebody senior reminded me of going to see the headmaster. When I talked about this to somebody who was listening to me, I realised, that if I met the CEO of “Intergalactic Enterprises”, I’m not going to get caned!
So I could meet the very senior people that I’d been avoiding. It was great because they didn’t have to ask other people for permission if they decided to do something.
My emotional block shifted when I talked to somebody who listened to me.
Listening to each other
We all have these emotional blocks. Finding somebody to listen to us can help us think better and act more effectively.
One way to organise this is to pair up and take turns. Every month, Dave and I have twenty minutes each way. He talks to me about whatever’s on his mind, and I help him think about it by listening and asking the odd question. Then, he does the same to me, and at the end of that, we think better, feel better, and have more energy. This practice is valuable even if you’ve had a really great time doing something. You can talk about it to somebody who’s listening to you. Afterwards, you have more joy, energy, playfulness, and engagement.
Do you have a listening partner?
Societal Division
It is evident when you look at society that groups are separate from each other. There’s stereotyping. We get a lot of hurt from misinformation which says that “Women are like this”, “Men are like this”, “Black people are like this”, “Jewish people are like this” “African people are like this”, “Americans are like this”, “Europeans are like this” “Republicans are like this”, “Democrats are like this” in a whole series of categories. These divisions make it more difficult for people to cooperate to build a just society. There’s much more difference between people within a category than between categories.
Random Acts of Listening
It’s a bit radical, but it’s great fun to listen to people who are different from you! A group of friends and I do random acts of listening. We go out individually into a community, engage perfect strangers in conversation, and try to understand their worlds from their point of view. You quickly discover that your stereotypes are wrong. Suppose you usually avoid people with shaved heads, tattoos, vests (singlets US), and muscles and think they are dangerous thugs. But then you discover, when you chat with one, that he’s a lovely guy, a philosopher, and a poet.
I will never stereotype tattooed young men again!
Listening to people who are different from us builds bridges. It could create a more peaceful and cooperative society.
Historical Hurts
People who’ve been in countries that have experienced ghastly historical trauma will have heard many, many stories about how dreadful it was, and most will not have had the opportunity to heal. They internalise this and think what happened in the past will happen in the present. Because of this fear, countries have become defensive and aggressive.
We can use that perspective to understand countries which are behaving aggressively now.
The USSR lost about 30 million people in the Second World War. It’s no wonder Russia acts aggressively when it feels surrounded by people who they consider to be potential enemies.
Six million Jewish people died in the Holocaust. It’s also no wonder Israelis behave aggressively when they feel threatened. They fear it could happen again.
Even these deep historical hurts can be healed by profound listening. It won’t be quick or easy, but it is possible.
Another story
It’s too easy to think that when people are aggressive, they’re just nasty rather than that there’s a reason.
I worked with Keith, who was in the university’s maintenance department. His boss told him that unless he stopped physically threatening and verbally abusing his staff, he would lose his job. That was the bad news. The good news was that he could talk to me. I met him in the gym. He was a huge man, an expert in martial arts, and he’d been in prison for causing Actual Bodily Harm!
So, I met him and said nervously, “Hello, Keith. Tell me a bit about yourself.”
He was the youngest of several children. His parents were agricultural labourers. He was born partially deaf, but it was undiagnosed until he was six. When he didn’t do what his parents asked him to do because he didn’t hear, they hit him. Later, when he felt threatened, he became very defensive and aggressive to prevent what had happened to him in the past from happening again.
I looked him in the eye and said to him, “Keith, you didn’t deserve any of that.” His eyes filled with tears. He saw what had happened to him, that he was a victim, and his behaviour changed. According to his boss and him, he became a different man.
Finally
We can label people. Are some current world leaders evil people? We don’t know enough about what happened to them. If you’re from a wealthy family, you may get many things, but you often don’t get much attention or love. You can’t meet an unmet need you had in the past from anything you get in the present.
Are they, too, hurting and desperate to be listened to?
