Just Listen

Last Tuesday afternoon, my friend Michael and I were finishing a four mile walk. I felt really good but when I was approaching my car, the window on the passenger side had been shattered. It looked like someone had struck it with a hammer. Glass was everywhere, in the car, in the parking lot and my purse was gone.

My first thought was that I hoped whoever did this had cut their hand. My second thought was to chide myself about not putting my purse in the trunk. Of course I should have, but stashing it under the front seat had become a habit. Clearly not a good one but I had been doing it for years, covering it with a jacket, but part of the strap must have been sticking out. I sat there in the driver’s seat head in my hands, with broken glass all around me. I thought about the things that I had lost. Glasses, sunglasses, lipstick, garage door opener, pills. And of course, the most important thing: my wallet with a good amount of cash and a whole lot of cards. Two credit cards. A debit card. My driver’s license. Insurance card. Macy’s Charge Card.

While I was calling the bank, I felt the loss but I reminded myself that countless people had lost everything in the fires. A friend’s iconic restaurant on Pacific Coast Highway had burned to the ground. Another friend’s home was gone. I couldn’t imagine how that felt. My experience was tame by comparison, but it was still violating and upsetting.

I thought back to the 1980’s when two angry guys had accosted me on the street at 10:30 in the evening. One of them punched me in the face while the other one grabbed my purse and they ran. My nose was fractured and my eye had a blood clot that lasted for a month. That incident clearly wasn’t my fault but this car break-in was a different story. I hadn’t been careful and I was punishing myself. I called a few friends and they told me to stop beating myself up. I could have paid more attention, but it was over now. They knew me and they knew I would learn from this. They encouraged me to have some compassion for myself – all but one person. She came down on me hard. She raised her voice and asked me how I could have been so stupid. I lived in a big city. What was I thinking? It served me right.

When I hung up the phone, I felt a lot worse than before I had made the call. I was already punishing myself enough without someone else jumping on the bandwagon. I learned something from that, too. There are ways to speak to people in crisis that doesn’t add to their pain, even if they did something that wasn’t so smart. There are things to say and things not to say. There are ways to read the room, so to speak, and evaluate what will be effective, loving and also true when someone is deeply upset.

I have a friend, David Kessler, a renowned grief counselor, Grief.com, who has a list on his website of the best and worst things to say to people in grief. For example, he shared that one of the best things to say is: “We all need help at times like this. I’m here for you.” One of the worst thing to say is, “He brought this on himself.”

In the mid-eighties, when AIDS was rampant and there were no meds to keep it at bay, I volunteered at an AIDS hospice. There were twenty-five dying people and my job was to walk from room to room and be there for each of them. Some of them wanted to talk. Some of them wanted to be quiet and hold hands. Some of them wanted to discuss dying and some of them wanted to talk about living.

It took a lot of patience to figure out what each person wanted. I had to slow way down and evaluate where I was and where the other person was so we could come together in the middle. At some point during the day, I stood at the door of a man who had AIDS and bone cancer. I asked him if I could come in and he said yes. I sat on the chair beside his bed and I got an education that I’ll never forget. He asked me to get him a cigarette. I had an impulse to tell him it wasn’t good for him, but why? He already had cancer and AIDS. Why shouldn’t he have what he wanted for the short time he’d still be here? I lit his cigarette, he took a satisfying puff and he proceeded to tell me how to be a good volunteer, Ask to come into a room like I had just done. Listen instead of giving opinions or telling anyone what to do or what to think. Don’t tell someone that you know how they feel because you don’t. The only surefire thing to do is listen.

Over the years, this man’s sage advice has stayed with me. I’ve learned ways to speak up to someone else in order to take care of myself and preserve a friendship at the same time. Using “I” messages is effective. “I feel hurt,” instead of “you’re hurting me.” “I need some space,” instead of “you’re smothering me.” It’s a simple rewording of a thought or a phrase that might result in someone staying open instead of shutting down and becoming defensive. It takes a lot of self-awareness and sensitivity, it takes practice and patience, it takes courage to be real and kind at the same time. But it’s so worth it. It allows you to be with other people in a way that isn’t chaotic or insulting, no matter what they’ve done. Being attentive to what you’re saying and to whom you’re saying it, can be a gift to them and to you.

I use these lessons in my ghostwriting interviews. I need to stay hyper aware of how I’m wording a question and how it’s being received. I learned this the hard way. I once asked a question about a client’s father that was so loaded, she got an instant migraine and I had to end the session. I paid attention to what I had just done and it never happened again.

It takes patience to think before you speak. To be loving and compassionate instead of blaming or lecturing. It takes mindfulness and awareness to be supportive when someone has made a mistake like leaving her purse under the front seat of the car.

If a situation shows up when you don’t know what to say or do, say and do nothing. When in doubt, just listen. It works every time.