This Healing Work

I can feel your pain as surely as if it were my own. When I place my hand on yours, it is fear I feel gnawing at your bones. Your pulse beats your story and your eyes tell a tale I am not sure I am strong enough to hear.

I see a little boy, unguarded and pure. I imagine rubber boots, fists full of rocks, dirt-encrusted fingernails, and holes in your socks. There was light in your eyes, once upon a time. You were light. I wish you could know this, hold on to this and let it carry you through the dark and scary nights. I wish you could remember.

I am on the verge of tears, but I know I need to get a grip. I am here to touch you in a way that is loving and safe, to honour your goodness and to help you move through those energetic knots that have you feeling so stuck and defeated. I am here to listen. I am here to care. I am so sorry.

Thank you for braving the blizzard and coming here today; for allowing me the privilege of playing a part in your healing journey. I am new at this, you know. I have only just begun and my heart is probably beating faster than yours is. Thank you for trusting me.

I am not a healer now, nor will I ever be. Those who claim to be healers have chosen to ignore one crucial piece of information: We can only heal ourselves. But I can be a tunnel, a conduct for healing energy to pass through me and into you. I can be the middlewoman that guides the energy, and perhaps even strengthens its curative properties, if my intentions are good and my vessel uncluttered. I am happy to be the intermediary between the heavens and your beautiful but broken spirit. I have prepared myself for this. I am ready.

I am not ready at all.

What can give can also receive. If energy can travel through me and into you, it can also travel through you and into me. And in this clear vessel that I have carefully primed for healing work, a tempest can take place.

It is taking place. As I make my way from school to home, hours later, my mind is racing with angry thoughts. I find it difficult to walk, not because of the snow on the ground but because there is a heaviness inside of me trying to pull me down. Everywhere I look, I see suffering. My throat is tight and I am overcome with feelings of frustration and annoyance. I want to stand up on the streetcar and scream “Nobody understands!”

This angry person is so far removed from the girl I was this morning, I know that something is not quite right. The realization comes as a shooting pain in my head: these strong emotions are yours, not mine. They have squeezed their way into my psyche and are wreaking havoc on my mind. They are spreading their claws and ripping through the fabric of my perfectly good day.

I teeter on the edge of panic. What do I do now?

I hear a voice - thick as smoke and smooth as honey. I have heard it before; it is the voice of the man who spends his days singing to strangers on the street. He never asks for money, never holds up a sign, but just sits there, crooning old favourites. I reach into my jacket pocket, dig out a looney, and drop it into his empty coffee cup. He says, “Thank you. God bless” and gives me a lopsided grin. I feel the irritated voices inside quiet down for a second and this reassures me a little.

I arrive home and know I need to be alone. I am in a toxic state and ready to spew venom on anybody who gets close. I give myself permission to feel the hurt - your hurt - which is now mine too. I allow the waves of sadness to lap at my feet, my knees, my waist, but I do not allow them to swallow me up. I fight against the undertow, digging my heels in the sand, clinging to the solid ground which is anything but solid.

I embrace my aloneness and wait for the waves to recede, the sadness to pass, the bitterness to lose its bite. I carve out a space for myself - a hollow haven amid the density of the human condition. I fall into it, as easily as I fall into bed, and I let go of everything about today: you and your troubled eyes, me and my naiveté, Old Man Winter’s gruff farewell, the street singer’s velvety voice.

I clean out my vessel, yet again, chipping away at the unnecessary bits. I remove particles of you, particles of me, particles of both of us that cover my insides with dust. I vow to do a better job of protecting this little heart of mine; it is the only one I’ve got. I am of no use to you, or to anybody, if I allow the weight of the world to press down on my shoulders and obstruct my energetic flow. I am of no use to you, or to anybody, if I allow anger and resentment to dictate the way. If I lose myself, I am of no use to even me.

I look up at the night sky and pray for you. I imagine a string of stars reaching down deep inside of you and uprooting your pain, your loss, your fear, and catapulting them past the moon, into the darkest black hole of the cosmos. I see the little boy that still lives inside you - he is wounded but not destroyed. I ask the stars to lead you back to that boy and his light. Back to you, back to hope. Back to health.

Listen

Cut open a conversation. Strip away the surface smile and look beneath the polite “mmhm.” Peer into the vacant eyes and see the thoughts - hundreds of them - fighting their way through the cerebral cortex, desperately wanting to be set free.

Realize that this conversation - like most conversations - is not the two-way street it is meant to be. It is not an exchange of ideas through verbal expression. Instead, it is a tug-of-words that carries on day after day, week after week, for years. It is a never-ending game of push/pull in which each party gives a little in order to take a lot.

This is not a conversation at all. Nobody is listening.

We think we are, but we are not.

We interrupt each other, finish the other person’s unfinished sentence, and continually try (mostly unconsciously) to bring the conversation back to us.

We sit next to someone we love - a dear friend we haven’t seen for weeks or months - but we are absent. They open their mouths and their words tumble out - words that we only partially hear because, as we sip our coffee and nibble on some cake, we are lost in our own circumstances and anxiously waiting for the opportunity to unleash our own discombobulated opinions, rebuttals, theories, and “truths.”

We say, “I know exactly how you feel” not because we know exactly how they feel (can we ever know exactly how someone else feels? Do we ever live someone else's life?) but because we want to share one of our own stories.

(Your Grandpa died? I know exactly how you feel. When my Grandpa died I was eight years old... and the tug-of-words continues).

We are trapped in a perpetual cycle of “waiting to talk.” Not because we are bad people, lousy friends, or poor partners, but because there is a deep need inside all of us to be heard.

I suspect it’s a need that arises in childhood, when most of us are told to “be seen and not heard,” to “be quiet in class,” to “shhhh.” We understood, early on, that our parents, our teachers, all of the adults in our world were busy. They didn’t always have time for our convoluted tales. They did the best they could, of course, but we didn’t want to be a bother, so we kept our thoughts mostly to ourselves and didn’t say the things we wanted to say.

We are saying them now though, whenever we can, to whomever will listen.

And here lies the crux of the problem - we are so consumed by the act of talking, so addicted to the sound of our own voice and the transmission of our own stories, that we have lost our ability to listen - really listen - to the stories of others.

Listening is not as simple as it looks. Real listening - the kind that has no underlying motive - takes practice and patience and resolve.

It requires a willingness to open your mind and your heart to fully receive the story that is being shared. It requires self-restraint to remain silent even though the words being spoken make you want to scream. It requires courage to stay present and grounded enough to see life through someone else’s lens, no matter how spotted or smeared that lens may be.

For the past two months, I have been actively trying to become a better listener and a more conscious friend. To be mindful when someone else is speaking, to turn off the flow of words inside my own head, and to immerse myself in the authentic sharing experience that is taking place.

The results, thus far, have been mind-boggling.

Friends whom I’ve known for years are sharing their previously unspoken hopes and deepest fears. They are divulging long-buried secrets and closeted pipe-dreams. They are opening up in a way they have never opened up before. And not because I am asking questions or digging for answers - but simply because I am there - really there - and I am willing to listen.

It is a privilege is to be invited into another person’s psyche; an honour to be entrusted with another’s personal mythology. It offers a tremendous opportunity for empathy, compassion, and growth.

After I have really listened to another person, I am always overcome by feelings of peace, joy, and profound gratitude for the genuine human-to-human connection of which I have been a part. Listening, I now know, is incredibly healing.

May we strive - all of us - to be better listeners. May we slow down, shut up, and be there. May we allow for pauses without feeling the need to jump in and clutter the silence with our own opinions. May we cherish those we love by creating a space for them that is comfortable and safe. May we come to understand that real listening is an art and an act of grace.

It is our right, as human beings, to be heard. And it is our duty, as human beings, to listen. After all, “the most precious gift we can offer anyone is our attention” (Thich Nhat Hanh).

Cut open a new conversation - one in which all parties are present, awake, and willing to relinquish their own narrative in order to embrace another’s. See the eyes - bright and alert. See the hearts - open and receptive.

See new kinds of relationships start to form, ones that run deeper than ever before. See the wounded child that lives inside every one of us start to heal. See the lessons being learned and the voices being heard. See the power of silent attentiveness at work.

Listen. Just listen. And watch your world transform.

***

This week's affirmation: I strive to be a better listener, a more mindful human being, a more conscious friend.