Listen

"The most basic and powerful way to connect to another person is to listen. Just listen. Perhaps the most important thing we ever give each other is our attention…. A loving silence often has far more power to heal and to connect than the most well-intentioned words."

 

—Rachel Naomi Remen

 

Rachel Naomi Remen is a physician and educator. She was trained as a pediatrician but gained fame as an author and teacher of alternative medicine in the form of integrative medicine. In the quote above, she is talking about using empathy and listening to help heal a person. Isn’t that what therapists often do? They don’t tell their patients what they should do, but they listen to the patient and ask the right questions to guide them to realize for themselves what they should do. At least, that’s how I see therapy.

 

As some of you know, I am an oral historian. I rarely conduct interviews anymore because the primary responsibilities of my job have changed. However, I am often asked to teach others how to conduct oral histories. There are technical aspects, such as recording and digitally archiving, that can be taught to anyone. I teach the protocols of good manners when scheduling and conducting interviews. These are all important lessons that are necessary for conducting a good oral history. However, conducting a great oral history can’t always be taught. The reason is that a person must learn to listen. They need to listen to what the interviewee says, how the interviewee says it, the inflections of the interviewee’s voice, and the body language of the interviewee. This can be achieved through learning to be empathetic and listening with your “third ear.”

 

The "third ear," a concept introduced by psychoanalyst Theodor Reik, refers to the practice of listening for the deeper layers of meaning in order to glean what has not been said outright. It means perceiving the emotional underpinnings conveyed when someone is speaking to you. You can’t listen with your third ear if you are speaking and not listening. As Remen said, “A loving silence often has far more power to heal and to connect than the most well-intentioned words." You might not immediately see why I think this is great advice for an oral historian. After all, it’s used in psychoanalysis, but part of being an oral historian is using the same techniques as a therapist. You have to listen not only to what is spoken but also to what is not spoken. Notice I did not say “what is said” because we can speak in ways other than vocal words.

 

One of the things we learned, while I was at my retreat to Easton Mountain, was ecstatic dance. Now, I am not a great dancer, but that’s not the point of ecstatic dance. Ecstatic dance is moving in a way your body tells you to move and remove your inhibitions. During ecstatic dance, we were told to not speak vocally but only speak through body language. I guess you can think of it as a form of interpretive dance. You “listen” to the other person’s body language, facial expressions, etc., to understand what they are saying. Now, I will not be teaching ecstatic dance as a way to learn to listen to your third ear, but it would not be the worst way to teach it. 

 

The most important thing to listening with your third ear is to have empathy. Oral histories are done for two major reasons that are intertwined. First, the oral historian is recording history from the mouths of those who lived it, and second, it is to let the interviewee tell their story. A lot of times, we just need to let our voices be heard, though we may not always know it. The oral historian's job is to bring out that story in a person. Oral histories can tell us so much about the person and the history that person lived. The emotions and reactions, or lack thereof, can speak as much as the spoken word. Listening with the third ear allows you to read a person and to take clues from their body language and voice that will tell you: Should I continue with this line of questioning? Should I stop this line of questioning? How can I get more of the story? When have you gone too far? Etc. In oral histories, you have to know when to hold back, and that comes from listening with your third ear. If you push too hard at the wrong time, then the interviewee is likely to shut down, and it won’t be you who is silent anymore. It will be the interviewee. By not practicing empathy, you can ruin an interview.

 

 These are lessons that we can develop in our everyday lives. People who have prejudices do not have empathy. They cannot understand why someone is different from them. They only care that the person falls in line with their beliefs. I often say that the central tenet of Christianity is unconditional love. Those who ignore the command to love do so because they have no empathy for others. They only have hatred. Empathy is so important in our lives. It allows the world to be a better place. So, I challenge you to be more empathetic in your life: to “give each other is our attention” and to offer “a loving silence.” Empathy can help cure the world of many of the ills that humanity often brings with their prejudices.

 

I could probably write a whole book on the importance of listening, but I’ll stop my ramblings at this point and just say, “Listen.”