Listening, the healing power

ONE aspect of my column last week struck a chord with people. That was the capacity to listen and be present to another person's pain without needing to change or stop their feelings.

The capacity to sit with another person who has lost everything and be present to their pain, listen to their fears and be open to everything they have to say, without having to solve their problems, nor take over and fix their lives, but to listen with care and compassion, is a powerful thing and, in itself, can promote healing.

This is something that many of us, including myself, struggle with. We see someone in pain and we want to stop it. We see someone in need and we want to help them. We see someone with a problem and we want to fix it.

There are also times when we avoid a person who has suffered greatly, as we don't know what to say to them, or we may be worried that we could say the wrong thing.

I think it pays to remember that people are incredibly resilient and resourceful. If they are given the right time, space and support they can overcome many obstacles and hardships themselves. People are also very forgiving. If you choose to approach someone who has suffered, rather than avoid them, and you do so with love and compassion then it doesn't matter too much what you say, your body language will show that you care.

I came across this poem a long time ago and used it when training in peer support. It is a marvellous poem that illustrates what can happen when we swap fixing for listening.

When I ask you to listen, and you start giving me advice, you have not done what I asked.

When I ask you to listen, and you begin to tell me why I should not feel that way, you are trampling on my feelings.

When I ask you to listen, and you feel you have to do something to solve my problem, you have failed me, strange as that may seem.

Listen! All I ask of you is to listen! Not talk or do - just hear. Advice is cheap. $1 could get you both 49 Dorothy Dix and Dr Spock in the one newspaper.

All I can do for myself. I am not helpless, maybe discouraged and faltering, but not helpless.

When you do something for me that I can do for myself, you contribute to my fear and weaknesses.

But when you accept as a simple fact that I do feel what I feel, no matter how irrational, then I quit trying to convince you, and I can get about the business of understanding what's behind this irrational feeling.

And when that's clear, the answers are obvious, and I don't need advice.

So please listen and just hear me, and if you want to talk, wait a little for your turn, and I'll listen to you.

If we remember "we have two ears and one mouth so that we can listen twice as much as we speak" (Epictetus), then we will enrich almost every relationship and promote far more healing than if we talk more than we listen.

A registered psychologist with a masters in applied psychology, Wanganui mother-of-two Kristen Hamling is studying for a PhD in positive psychology at Auckland University of Technology