We all have a deep need to be seen and understood. Yet we spend so little time understanding others.
We are wrapped up in our needs and we have this expectation that others are seeing us as important. We expect others to understand us, but we are not prepared to understand them.
Equally, we do not communicate with others, we isolate ourselves, close ourselves off and then still expect others to understand us.
It is always better to start from a position of no expectation of others, it stops us from becoming disappointed and releases them from the burden of our expectations.
We have to be first to understand others and that requires us to listen. Listening is a challenge for us all as we are not taught how to listen properly. True listening is being silent, listening to the other person from our hearts and listening to them how we would want others to listen to us…fully and completely without judgement, evaluation or interruption. Listening isn’t about a pause for us to think about what to say next, it isn’t about evaluating what the other person is saying, it isn’t about us or how it might affect us.
People want to be heard and seen not told and fixed. They do not want to hear about our story or for their story to be judged or corrected. Their truth is theirs, and their story is theirs. We are not the arbiter of that, or the person to correct what we have judged to be wrong about it. Our role is to listen to them empathetically and from a place of love, allowing them to be seen and know that they have been understood.
It is one soul seeing the soul of another and connecting with them as one without the filters of our minds.
Philip Dodson 