Listening with Both Ears
W
e really do not give Kindergarten the credit it deserves when it comes to the values it encapsulates. Some wise soul decided to craft a book about the lessons learned in the year prior to jumping both feet into the academic rat race. Its humble wittiness is endearing. Ms. Wahloo was the delightful name of my Kindergarten teacher. Imagine the vivacious teacher from The Magic School Bus and you’ve got an idea of the soul that graced the classroom that year. To grab the attention of 20+ youngsters with the attention spans of hamsters, she would clap out a pattern to signal us to follow suit. Then, she would place a finger over her mouth and poise two fingers with her other hand above her head. The expectation was for us little humans to copy the pose. Years later, I connected the dots and realized the two fingers meant listen with both ears.
had to exercise the art of putting aside my own agenda to sit with the experiences of someone else’s that were different from my own. This was easily one of the most arduous skills to incorporate into my clinical repertoire. What makes putting a pause on our own agendas so difficult? Perhaps it’s the irritating experience of perceived misunderstanding on behalf of the others involved in the dialogue. Defensiveness derives from a place of vulnerability that nobody wants to validate. If we acknowledge the vulnerability in the room, then we must sit with the fact that it’s an impossible feat to fully “get” the differing perspectives circulating within a discussion. Desperate to cover up our humanness, we latch onto the idealistic expectation of convincing others our experiences are the most “correct”. Yet, all this pattern of interaction does is chase one another around the metaphorical bush.
What an underappreciated lesson this is once we exit the Kindergarten classroom.
I work toward normalizing the act of pausing as a clinician. This always throws me back to the stance Ms. Wahloo took I cannot tell you how many people grace my office that only with the two fingers high above her head. As youngsters, we adapted to the mindful nature this simple pose signified. listen with one ear. One ear to capture the dialogue of the We were not focused on the internal dialogue poised to experiences different from their own, and the other ear is attack in response. Instead, we placed our bumbling distracted by the buzz of their own flustered internal agendas to the side and attended with both ears to the dialogue that is busy preparing to rebuttal whatever thoughts and feelings of the bubbly teacher we adored. narrative is shared by the other. Perhaps this is where we get lost. We so often sidestep the So often, we become conditioned to listen to respond, compassion that humans are worthy of and get lost in the forgetting that the true purpose of listening is to shame of vulnerability that is cued by hurt feelings. understand. Something they forget to teach us in grade school is that we must achieve understanding prior to problem solving in Oy, if only people knew the negating nature of that “but”. any vocalized interaction with others. If we jump right into I will admit, I had to complete a master’s program to relearn problem solving, it is as if we begin to build a new house the original intent of listening, including relearning how to before the old one is finished burning. We must first attend properly attend to those I am engaged with. This meant I to the fire prior to beginning new construction. This means My favorite cop-out line is “I hear what you’re saying but…”
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October 2021 InSession | FMHCA.org
