When in Doubt, Just Listen<\/p>\n
Last Tuesday afternoon, my friend\u00a0Michael and I were finishing a four mile walk. I felt really good but when I was\u00a0approaching my car, the window on the passenger side had been shattered. It\u00a0looked like someone had struck it with a hammer. Glass was everywhere, in the
car, in the parking lot and my purse was gone.<\/p>\n
My first thought was that I hoped\u00a0whoever did this had cut his hand. My second thought was to chide myself about\u00a0not putting my purse in the trunk. Of course I should have, but stashing it\u00a0under 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\u00a0been sticking out. I sat there in the driver\u2019s seat head in my hands, with broken\u00a0glass all around me. I thought about the things that I had lost. Glasses,\u00a0sunglasses, lipstick, garage door opener, pills. And of course, the most\u00a0important thing: my wallet with a good amount of cash and a whole lot of cards.\u00a0Two credit cards. A debit card. My driver\u2019s license. Insurance card. Macy\u2019s\u00a0Charge Card.<\/p>\n
While I was calling the bank, I\u00a0felt the loss but I reminded myself that countless people had lost everything\u00a0in the fires. A friend\u2019s iconic restaurant on Pacific Coast Highway had burned\u00a0to the ground. Another friend\u2019s home was gone. I couldn\u2019t imagine how that\u00a0felt. My experience was tame by comparison, but it was still violating and upsetting.<\/p>\n
I thought back to the 1980\u2019s when two\u00a0angry guys had accosted me on the street at 10:30 in the evening. One of them\u00a0punched 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\u00a0incident clearly wasn\u2019t my fault but this car break-in was a different story. I\u00a0hadn\u2019t been careful and I was punishing myself. I called a few friends and they\u00a0told me to stop beating myself up. I could have paid more attention, but it was\u00a0over now. They knew me and they knew I would learn from this. They encouraged\u00a0me to have some compassion for myself \u2013 all but one person. She came down on me\u00a0hard. She raised her voice and asked me how I could have been so stupid. I\u00a0lived in a big city. What was I thinking? It served me right.<\/p>\n
When I hung up the phone, I felt a lot worse than before I had made the call. I was already punishing myself\u00a0enough without someone else jumping on the bandwagon. I learned something from\u00a0that, too. There are ways to speak to people in crisis that doesn\u2019t add to
their pain, even if they did something that wasn\u2019t so smart. There are things\u00a0to say and things not to say. There are ways to read the room, so to speak, and\u00a0evaluate what will be effective, loving and also true when someone is deeply\u00a0upset.<\/p>\n
I have a friend, David Kessler, a renowned\u00a0grief 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\u00a0things to say is: \u201cWe all need help at times like this. I\u2019m here for you.\u201d One\u00a0of the worst thing to say is, \u201cHe brought this on himself.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the mid-eighties, when AIDS was\u00a0rampant and there were no meds to keep it at bay, I volunteered at an AIDS\u00a0hospice. There were twenty-five dying people and my job was to walk from room\u00a0to room and be there for each of them. Some of them wanted to talk. Some of\u00a0them wanted to be quiet and hold hands. Some of them wanted to discuss dying\u00a0and some of them wanted to talk about living.<\/p>\n
It took a lot of patience to figure\u00a0out what each person wanted. I had to slow way down and evaluate where I was\u00a0and 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.\u00a0I asked him if I could come in and he said yes. I sat on the chair beside his\u00a0bed and I got an education that I\u2019ll never forget. He asked me to get him a\u00a0cigarette. I had an impulse to tell him it wasn\u2019t good for him, but why? He\u00a0already had cancer and AIDS. Why shouldn\u2019t he have what he wanted for the short\u00a0time he\u2019d 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\u00a0had just done. Listen instead of giving opinions or telling anyone what to do\u00a0or what to think. Don\u2019t tell someone that you know how they feel because you\u00a0don\u2019t. The only surefire thing to do is listen.<\/p>\n
Over the years, this man\u2019s sage\u00a0advice has stayed with me. I\u2019ve learned ways to speak up to someone else in\u00a0order to take care of myself and preserve a friendship at the same time. Using \u201cI\u201d
messages is effective. \u201cI feel hurt,\u201d instead of \u201cyou\u2019re hurting me.\u201d \u201cI need\u00a0some space,\u201d instead of \u201cyou\u2019re smothering me.\u201d It\u2019s a simple rewording of a\u00a0thought or a phrase that might result in someone staying open instead of shutting\u00a0down and becoming defensive. It takes a lot of self-awareness and sensitivity,\u00a0it takes practice and patience, it takes courage to be real and kind at the\u00a0same time. But it\u2019s so worth it. It allows you to be with other people in a way\u00a0that isn\u2019t chaotic or insulting, no matter what they\u2019ve done. Being attentive\u00a0to what you\u2019re saying and to whom you\u2019re saying it, can be a gift to them and to\u00a0you.<\/p>\n
I use these lessons in my\u00a0ghostwriting interviews. I need to stay hyper aware of how I\u2019m wording a\u00a0question and how it\u2019s being received. I learned this the hard way. I once asked\u00a0a question about a client\u2019s father that was so loaded, she got an instant\u00a0migraine and I had to end the session. I paid attention to what I had just done
and it never happened again.<\/p>\n
It takes patience to think before\u00a0you speak. To be loving and compassionate instead of blaming or lecturing. It\u00a0takes mindfulness and awareness to be supportive when someone has made a
mistake like leaving her purse under the front seat of the car. \u00a0<\/p>\n
If a situation shows up when you\u00a0don\u2019t know what to say or do, say and do nothing. When in doubt, just listen.\u00a0It works every time.<\/p>\n
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When in Doubt, Just Listen Last Tuesday afternoon, my friend\u00a0Michael and I were finishing a four mile walk. I felt really good but when I was\u00a0approaching my car, the window on the passenger side had been shattered. It\u00a0looked like someone had struck it with a hammer. Glass was everywhere, in thecar, in the parking lot […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2679","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2679","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2679"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2679\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2680,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2679\/revisions\/2680"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2679"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2679"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2679"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}