Ebb and flow
Come and go
Listen and learn
Take a turn
The words came to me as a sort of mantra last night.
Ebb and flow
Come and go
Listen and learn
Take a turn
I’ve been pondering.
I’ve been thinking about communication and relationships.
Listening.
I’m fortunate to be in many relationships and communities where listening is highly valued.
And yet I - like most of us I’m sure - encounter spaces and conversations that lack reciprocity or give-and-take or listening.
I imagine the lost art of listening has been exacerbated by our quick-paced, results-driven culture. Not to mention decreased attention spans. No time to slow down, to really listen, to sit in silence. The rush to avoid silence, the rush to relate everything back to oneself. It’s all-business-all-the-time - rushing to conclusions and comparisons and solutions. When maybe what was really needed was a listening ear. Or even companionable silence.
***
A person whose content I find both thoughtful and helpful is Nedra Tawwab. I follow her on Instagram and read her Substack newsletter Nedra Nuggets. In a recent newsletter - “Opting Out of the Pain Olympics” - she addresses some of the same thoughts, specifically when it comes to sharing struggles. She writes about the tendency of people to “one up” or share their own challenges when someone is confiding a difficulty to them.
“We have to be careful when people are sharing things in conversations with us, that we are connecting rather than disconnecting. When someone is going through something, there are ways we can share our own experience that can be helpful, but oftentimes, it’s not about sharing our story, so much as signaling that we understand how the person is feeling.”
~Nedra Tawwab
In the newsletter, she shares constructive advice for “holding space” for others. There are thoughtful comments on the post as well. Sometimes the way people communicate has to do with neurodivergences, for example. So, although we may get frustrated by people who can’t “hold space” or always need to relate the conversation back to themselves, it’s good to keep those kinds of differences in mind.
We all hijack conversations sometimes. It’s a part of being human, but it’s important that we pay attention to how often it is happening.
~Nedra Tawwab
Pay attention. That’s the bottom line. That’s the reminder we all need.
It’s important to hold space for the people we care about. And also, we need to identify the people in our circle who will likewise hold space for us.
And holding space isn’t only about the difficult times. It’s also about cheering each other on and supporting those we care about, who likewise encourage us in our various endeavors too.
***
May we ebb and flow.
May we come and go.
May we listen and learn.
May we take a turn.
***
Thanks for reading!
With gratitude,
Mary
I needed this today. Thank you!
Opting out of the Pain Olympics was too intriguing to pass up! Thanks for sharing that gem.
Pain seems to be the theme of the day today for me. I read a chapter in the book Belonging: Remembering Ourselves Home by Toko-pa Turner called Pain as sacred Ally. A few nuggets I picked up (not about listening in relationship to others but about listening in relationship to pain) were:
To create meaning from adversity
To offer kindness and affection toward pain
To show up empty-handed and still know you are lovable
My own little bit of experience is that people often apologize for sharing their pain or thank me for listening if they know I myself am experiencing difficulty, even if in this particular conversation I am not sharing it. I believe this is act of acknowledgement is "holding space." It is the persons ability to recognize that pain is universal. We share this as humans. We can relate. The person makes space and allows for another's experience of pain.