Listening is such a simple act. It requires us to be present,
 and that takes practice. But we don’t have to do anything else.
We don’t have to advise, or sound wise.
We just have to be willing to sit there and listen.
If we can do that, we will create opportunities for real healing.

I have seen the healing power of good listening so often that I wonder if you’ve noticed it also. There may have been a time when a friend was telling you such a painful story that you became speechless. You couldn’t think of anything to say, so you just stood there, listening closely, but not saying a word. And what was the result of your silence?

A young black South African woman taught some of my friends a profound lesson about listening. She was sitting in a circle with women from different countries, who each had a chance to share an experience from their lives. When her turn came, she told a story of true horror -- she had found her grandparents slaughtered in their village. Many of the women in her village were Westerners, and in the presence of such pain, they were compelled to act. They wanted to make things better. Anything to remove the pain of this tragedy. The young woman felt their compassion but also felt them closing in. She put her hands up, as if to push back their desire to help. She said, “I don’t need you to fix me. I just need you to listen to me.”

She taught many women that day that being listened to is enough.

If we can speak our story and know that others hear it, it somehow heals us. During the Truth and Reconciliation Commission hearings in South Africa, many of those who testified to the atrocities they endured under apartheid, spoke of being healed by their own testimony. They knew that many people were listening to their story.

Why is being heard so healing?

I don’t know the full answer to that question, but I do know that it has something to do with the fact that listening creates a relationship. We know from science that nothing in the universe exists as an isolated or independent entity. Everything takes form from relationships. In the web of life, nothing living lives alone.

Listening brings us closer; it helps us become more whole, healthier, and more holy. Not listening creates fragmentation, and fragmentation is the root of all suffering.

Archbishop Desmond Tutu describes this era as a time of “radical brokenness” in all our relationships. In the global family we see disconnection and fear in one another. Take teenagers of the world today. They say that no one listens to them. They feel ignored and discounted, and in their pain, they turn to each other to create their own subcultures, or they turn inside and commit suicide.

This is an increasingly noisy era – people shout at each other in print, at work, on TV.

People are literally clamoring for attention, and they will do whatever it takes to be noticed. We can take an active step to help by being willing to listen.

In the field of restorative justice, victims of crime meet with the ones who committed the crime. Parents whose child was murdered meet with the murderer. In this unimaginable setting, questions are asked and information exchanged .A young man who killed another teenager learns who she was and what her loss means to her family; A rapist hears what it feels like to be raped.

As time passes, people who could be expected to fear and hate one another end up in relationships characterized by understanding and forgiveness. It takes courage to begin this type of conversation. But listening, rather than arguing, is much easier.

I started listening, and found it quite enjoyable. And I learned things I never would have known had I interrupted or advised.

I know that my arguments will not change the world. But, things do change if I have caused even a small movement toward wholeness; when I move closer to another by being willing to listen patiently.

Excerpts taken from:  Finding our Way by Margaret J. Wheatley. Berrett-KoehlerPublishers, Inc. San Francisco