It’s Easy To Listen To A Scotsman
By Susannah Freymark
I feel like listening. Deep listening. I’ve been doing a lot of thinking, talking, debating on issues and a lot of doing. It’s time to listen.
Not just to the people I find interesting and passionate about ‘their thing’, or people with a Scottish accent who can say anything and my attention will remain focused but really listening to people’s stories.
To the pain and joy of their lives. Hearing what moves them, inspires and grieves them. What makes them laugh out loud?
I fancy hiring a houseboat and spending weeks upon the wide waters of the Tweed, stopping at places to listen. Just to whoever is there, isn’t that always the right person?
Or inviting ‘guests’ to board the boat- a listening tour if you will.
Fran Peavey, comedian, activist and author of Heart Politics Revisited embarked on her own listening adventure.
She felt her view of the world was restricted by her contact with a limited range of people. She decided she needed a bigger heart. A global heart.
She came up with idea of sitting in a public place with a cloth sign that read; ‘American Willing to Listen’. She practised in the park in Santa Barbara before heading to Japan.
At a busy railway station outside Osaka she unfolded her two-by-three foot cloth sign and laid it on the ground. It was her first international listening stop. She waited.
It was thirty minutes before someone stopped, a man in his forties who worked at a shoe factory. He couldn’t understand what she was trying to do.
The next man did, he discussed his concerns about the border war between North and South Korea, about the level of consumerism in Japan and his worries about his relationship with his wife.
Listening is not passive. It is about an active connection with the person in front of you. Fran would listen to people as openly as she could ‘trying to get a glimpse of the world through their eyes.’
She found that during conversations that went on for some time she would start to feel the soft stirrings of connection.
Are things getting better or worse in your life? For your family? In the community you live in? In the world?
She found these questions got people talking in Russia, New Zealand, India, Israel, Palestine and other countries. It became a life-long project; Fran saw it as a kind of ‘tuning-up of my heart to the affairs of the world.’
It can be a joy to listen and connect with someone who is comfortable in their own stillness, who is passionate and centred.
The challenge comes in hearing stories that you disagree with. They may be painful or bigoted and listening brings up your own defences.
In those situations I try to hear what is behind the words, what is not being said.
Yet too often I want to give my opinion and my impatience fuels a desire to interrupt on the arrogant assumption that I know best.
I try to catch myself, if I have such a need to defend or state my point of view, that is the time I most need to shut up.
I know the release we can feel when we are authentically listened to. It resonates deep in our bones when we are heard.
Imagine if we chose our leaders on their capacity to listen. Not on the way they talk, dress or present policies- but on how they listen.
It could make the nine o’clock news reports difficult. “John Howard really heard what was said today. He listened well.” Imagine!
Dr Rachel Pinney, an innovator in play therapy who developed Creative Listening, used various techniques to focus on what others were saying. This had a major impact in her professional and political work.
She died in 1995 but from the mid-60’s onwards she spent every Wednesday in silence.
It was her personal protest against nuclear weapons but that day in stillness and in deep reflection listening to herself would have given her a clarity and perspective on the world that she might otherwise have missed.
So yes, I’d like to invite David Attenborough (of course), David Suzuki, Mansukh Patel, Fran Peavey, Nelson Mandela and many others aboard my listening boat. But I also have a desire to bear witness to ordinary stories.
Stories of abuse, discontent, the mechanics of our daily lives and interactions.
It is my attempt to understand. Through sorrow and laughter it is the human glue that binds us.
And listening to myself. Taking time to hear what’s going on in my own head and heart.
With all the listening I want to do, I could very busy over the next few months.
Dr Mansukh Patel’s advice helps when I am wavering;
The most important place is here
The most important time is now
The most important person is the
one in front of you.
Simply…listen.
Written by Susannah Freymark for Here & Now magazine, Byron Bay, circa 2004
Leave your comment about It’s Easy To Listen To A Scotsman or share with your friends on Facebook
Leave a Reply