“The first duty of love is to listen.” ~Paul Tillich

I listen to people for a living. I am 66, and I’ve done this for 30 years professionally, and really, according to the scientific literature, I began 67 years ago, in utero, listening to my parents. I heard my passionate red-haired Irish father get angry and frustrated, and I heard him be loving and tender. I heard my steady and loving red-haired Irish mother calm him down.

I became an expert listener before I learned to walk or talk or understand. By listening, I felt what each person was trying to convey, and I felt it in a way that was at times overwhelming. I felt it in a way that had a huge impact on my nervous system, and I became a listener for the music behind the words that people around me were saying. Sometimes….in fact often…I heard what people didn’t realize they were saying, but I had no way of knowing what was real, because when I responded to what I heard, I was told that I was wrong.

I remember telling my angry father to stop being a bully and terrorizing everyone around him because he didn’t feel good about himself. That didn’t go over well!

After the birth of my third child, I found myself needing someone to listen to me. I was guided to a wise and embracing older woman, Eleanor, my first therapist, who not only listened to me, but also had me beat the daylights out of her couch with two foam bats. This went on for months, and when I asked her one day, when we would begin therapy, she said, “Honey, you had so much anger and hurt when you walked in here, that I knew we needed to make space for something new first. I think you are ready now.”

I listened to Eleanor, and she taught me to listen to myself. I had no idea that I had so much to say, and what I was saying scared me. I was admitting how unhappy I was, how useless and worthless I felt, and that made what I had felt for so long very real. I was listening to how unhappy I was in my marriage, and could not deny it any longer.

I learned to really listen to myself—to different parts of myself. There was a child part, a victim part, a prostitute, a saboteur. I learned about archetypes, how trauma affects the brain, and in all this listening, I became deeply hungry to know more. I did breathwork, energy work, and shamanic healings. I was listening to something deeper than my heartache, as I pursued my own healing. I was being guided to my calling.

This eventually led me to study at Columbia University School of Social Work, to become a psychotherapist, who listens to people who are struggling and in pain. This brings me to now, to this time in my life when I have been listening for 67 years. I enjoy and feel fulfilled by my work which continues to grow me into a better human being as time goes on. I consider myself hugely blessed to listen so deeply to so many beautiful human beings.

The truth is, that one of the great dangers in being such a good listener is that you forget to listen to yourself. You forget that the person in crisis can wait another few days. You forget that you, the listener, are offering a great gift by listening, and that it requires a huge amount of energy. You forget that you are holding space for the heartaches of so many people, and that all that pain affects you, which is part of your gift. You forget that you must keep replenishing the place from which you listen, by diving deep into your own depths, and listening to your soul.

I do forget these things, but not for long, because I must take radically good care of myself physically, emotionally, and spiritually, to continue to be a truly present listener, and I value that role, that skill, as a great and wondrous gift of the Creator.

Some things in my self-care regimen I am steady with, like hawt pilates and hot yoga, which I do at least five days a week. This helps to keep me strong and flexible, in body and mind. Prayer, meditation, and reflection can be rushed at times when I put too much on my plate, and I always feel a bit ungrounded when I lapse. Sleep suffers when I have not set good limits, especially around time on the computer, and I become revved, which happens easily with a finely tuned nervous system like mine. To be a good friend to myself, I need to step away from all screens early enough, and take an Epsom salt bath that helps to relax my entire system.

The great act of friendship I give to myself at the end of each day is a ritual I hold sacred. After prayer, I envision a beautiful yellow rose in front of me, and I send all the unwanted and “not-me” energies and thoughts I have picked up from the day into the yellow rose. Everything I have listened to goes into the rose. I then see the rose explode into stardust.

I then envision a beautiful red rose in front of me, and I call back all the parts of me that have flown into the day to come into the rose. I call them back, every one of them, and then I bring that rose into my heart.

I often fall asleep before I even finish.

Photo: Pixabay