The lingering impact of age and a medical crisis years ago has left me with part-time inability to hear with my right ear. Unlike an object that triggers an alarm when not working, the inability to hear is dominated by silence. If you do not see the source of the sound and have an indication that you are the intended listener, you never know! As hard as it might be to believe in any given situation, I honestly did not hear.
I have developed a habit when listening intently. I look directly at the individual with my primary attention on the speaker’s lips. The topic of where one looks when listening has become the subject of several recent articles with a variety of opinions on why individuals focus on the lips as well as feedback on how individuals react when a listener is looking anywhere but into the speaker’s eyes. To everyone involved, I suggest the following.
Create space in conversations for people to speak and listen in a way that works for each. There is a need for tolerance on both sides. There is room for each to reach across the differences to accept and embrace what works for the other. I recognize that this is not easy. In my experience, the closer the other is to me the harder it is for me to accept their differences. Tone, cultural customs, preconceptions, history, and expectations are just the starting point of the challenge of what separates us.
If either side feels uncomfortable, talk about the discomfort! Start with owning your feelings. Work to remain open to a different style and method of communicating. Embracing another through the differences which naturally push us apart is the beginning of a new dialogue.
Listen with the intent of understanding first. If one does not hear with understanding, what follows is disconnected and often lacks authenticity. When one understands, one opens one’s self to replicating a truth-filled model; “He listened to the groans of the doomed, he opened the doors of their death cells.”” (Psalm 102.20)
I hear you.
