By Anonymous To listen. To hear. What’s the difference between the two? “But I am listening…” “Okay, what did I say?” “You said, ah…um…well, okay, just wait a sec here. Hey! I was listening!” Usually at this point what I was doing was not listening, but getting defensive because I had not been listening, but telling myself I was. Once, I was shopping at a plant nursery, wishing to purchase a small shade tree. The cashier was double-checking an order with another client and asked if she could also help me. I responded by saying I would wait until her transaction with her first customer was completed. “Oh! No,” they both agreed, “We do this all the time –it’s called ‘multi-tasking!’” I again opted to wait until their business with each other was completed. However, the cashier insisted on “hearing” my questions as she continued with her first customer. As I began my first question, the cashier returned her attention, once again, to her original customer. At this point, my anger flared (letting me know I had crossed my own boundary?) and hearing/listening to that anger, I physically retreated a step backwards. The cashier (once again) invited my questions, and (once again) returned her attention to her other client (they were now checking a lengthy list of stock for its availability). How “heard” did I feel? What was the quality of our communication? My daughter (as a small child) and I were sitting in our dining room one day. She began talking to me while I was reading an article. I remember she came up to me and took my face in both her hands to look into my eyes –ensuring I would give her my full attention. What I heard in her gesture was, in that moment, “I’m important. I matter.” And she was right. That incident is still, today, teaching me on deeper and deeper levels. How “heard” did she feel after her gesture? What was the quality of our communication before that gentle correction? I have had to learn how to listen. Not an easy task for an egomaniac with an inferiority complex! Practicing this has many times brought up intense feelings of discomfort (picture “squirming in the hot seat”), making me feel uneasy at times, at other times sad. The more I practice listening and trying to hear, really hear, what is being communicated to me, it seems the less my brain needs to be involved. Listening becomes more of a gift than a practice. Who has ever been totally involved in a particular piece of especially loved music, filled with sensing and feelings, and at the same time wondering, “Would this be a good weekend to get my income tax returns done?” or, “How can I squeeze in an oil change for the car this afternoon?” Turning off the brain, again, is not easy for this compulsive personality. Or even more difficult, how many times have I been able to still my racing push to “have the answer” for you before I even knew what the question was? Or even to pause to determine if you had a question?? That process seemed as absolutely and undeniably inevitable and linked as walking by using my left foot, followed by my right foot. The second you started to talk about yourself was the moment I went into the possessive undertow of having to come up with a solution or a “fix” for you. What’s wrong with that, you may think? Isn’t that the “caring” feeling I was supposed to have, to prove to you (and myself) that I was okay, that life was never overwhelming and that I had everything “under control”? Only my “under control” was actually the paradox of never being IN control, of powerlessness. Hearing is one thing, listening is another. And we don’t always listen/hear with our ears. Sometimes we listen to body language, fragrances, or (oddly enough) the absence of known and routine comforts. Then I begin to question (for me) what is going on, what am I learning here? Have you ever lain in a solitary grassy field at night and listened to a summer night’s sky? Just what is God’s message for me? So how does this work for me? Maybe, once I become aware of and get past (a.) the “I don’t know why I feel this” syndrome and on to (b.) an awareness of whatever the feeling is, then I am on the sometimes bumpy, but generally recovering, path back to my truth. For example, I am beginning to learn that if I hear (and listen) to the idea that I am an unworthy and unlovable person, then generally I feel distrustful and wary around people, which steers me towards isolation and/or acting out. When I listen to the external world, I am often confused. I don’t know what is truthful or, more importantly, what “my” truth is. As I truly listen to you, I am also learning to listen to myself and vice versa, and to distinguish what is true for me at any given moment. I am learning the process of trusting my Higher Power and trusting myself. The bottom line seems to be that, as a tool, listening has been the jackhammer of my recovery tools, enabling defenses to be broken through (paradoxically) quite gently. The opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect the opinions of AASG or its members.