Fill in the Bubbles!
Take a very close look at this picture. No matter how you fill in these bubbles--these people are parallel, speaking and not listening. Albert Camus says that the most desperate need of the human soul is to be heard. When it is not--it begins to eat itself because we are fed when we are heard. Or as one counselor told me way back--"Listening is an act of grace. When we are truly heard, then we are 'accepted' as we really are."
Real story. I am making my way through the crowds of Costco. A woman comes the opposite direction pushing a cart with a Blue Spruce, 4 ft high. I blurt out: "What a gorgeous tree!" She stops and talks about what a deal she got. As I listen, I open the "doors" of the conversation to some deep places, such as a son sick with auto-immune from Lyme, a health system ignoring her, and a husband she claims has left everything for her to do--"and we are running out of money because insurance does not cover this kind of sickness." I stood there just listening, confirming what I heard, accepting her. She broke open with tears.
Okay enough! I brought her out of it, affirmed her, and I got her email address. Don't ask me where I plan to go with this! But she left Costco having been truly heard. I hope she was fed!
Can you FEEL the listening?
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