It is my belief that the ultimate source of everything is a universal consciousness, which existed like a formless, timeless ocean before the physical world came into being. Our experiences are the food of consciousness, and the reason for life existing. That’s how important our life experiences are!
Listening fully to the person in front of us is the essence of what they need to heal. It sounds too simple but hearing, witnessing and accepting them is is the gift they need. Accepting a person’s feelings without trying to tell them “It’s not as bad as you think” or “Why don’t you do this...” is in fact the key. The feelings just need to be heard, and then they can begin to lose their power over us. It is like shining a torch under the bed together to make the monsters turn back into ordinary stuff. When we are stressed, the brain chemistry changes so that we cannot think clearly, we go into survival mode, “fight, flight or freeze” and our problem-solving abilities are much diminished. It is literally a matter of not getting much blood to the higher regions of the brain. When a person feels genuinely heard, they will usually feel a measure of relief which makes it suddenly possibly for them to explore their situation more clearly. Feeling understood and feeling the compassion of another person, allows us to switch back into a contemplative mode and then solutions will present themselves. Telling a person your own solution to their problem is disempowering and unhelpful; people can solve their own problems, in a way which is unique and meaningful to them, once they experience feeling safe and supported. In my training as a counsellor, we worked hard to understand ourselves and our own troubles and to consider how we frame them and contain them. During this process, we worked on being able to put our personal stories aside whilst listening to someone else talk. The art of listening is mainly this, the ability to give all your attention to the other person and really try to understand what they are saying and what they are communicating. It is asking yourself, “What are they feeling but not saying?” and paying attention to body language as well as to the words themselves. This does not mean you make assumptions. You can check by asking, “Is this what you mean?” They will quickly tell you if it isn’t and not be offended because they know you are doing your best to understand, and you want to listen if they want to explain it more clearly. Once you’ve understood it right, you have helped that person to feel validated and understood. It is about putting your own reactions aside and trying to put yourself in the other person’s place and get what they are feeling. It was a long and uncomfortable process learning how to do this but I believe we all need these skills and they should be widely disseminated, as we all need to find ways to help each other. Although many of our life situations are broadly similar, it often surprises me how differently people respond. When I think that if I had that experience I would be angry or upset about it, the other person is busy reacting strongly to something else. This is evidence of our amazing uniqueness in the way we have built up our understanding of the world and our place in it, through our own particular experiences and interpretation of them.
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I have written a few short articles for a local magazine about looking after your mental health, which are provided here. It seems to me that we need to pull together and share our skills and help each other. |