For people in need of help
“How can I help?”
can be an overwhelming
question.
Instead,
listen and inquire deeply.
To unearth
their unconscious concerns.
Respect creatively.
To make value
from their unappreciated concerns.
Request permission.
Before sharing the load
of those specific concerns.
Be honest.
Enough to share
your own struggles.
And most importantly,
follow up.
Soon,
the need to ask
“How can I help?”
will vanish.
“Can you hear the time?”
asked the art teacher.
“What??”
he responded,
bewildered.
“The time.
Can you hear it?”
she asked again.
“What the hell
are you talking about?!”
he asked,
now annoyed.
“…”
she paused.
“Can you tell me what time it is
without looking at your watch.”
she eventually spoke again.
“No.
I can’t.”
he replied,
indignantly.
“Just a few moments ago,
the church bell rang
to indicate noon.
If you want to make art,
I want you to learn
to be present enough
to hear that.”
she replied.
“I did my best.
I meditated.
I actively listened.
I created psychological safety.
Yet, they still let me down…”
a founder lamented.
…
Once upon a time,
I was cheated on.
Externally,
I was angry.
I thought I had done
my best,
and yet
this had still happened.
Some said,
that to recover
I needed to hear
her regret.
Perhaps.
But I was already overwhelmed
with my own.
“I should’ve done X.”
“I could’ve done Y better .”
“Why didn’t I know
that Z was not enough?”
Because internally,
I was ashamed.
In hindsight,
what I needed
was appreciation.
The kind
that would’ve helped me let go
of the unconscious belief
that I hadn’t actually
“done my best,”
and thus deserved
to be abandoned.
…
There are times,
when we think “doing our best”
means following best practices
as espoused by podcasts
or academic research.
It can.
So long as it also means
accepting we’ve done our best
even if the practices fail.
So long as it also means
learning to grieve
when they fail.
So long as it also means
leveraging the meaning
of them having failed.
All
for the purpose
of recovery.
Tolerating isn’t sustainable.
Respecting is.
There are workshops that teach listening
as a collection of techniques,
like:
Smiling.
Nodding.
Saying “mhm.”
etc.
Even if you do all of that,
if internally you’re merely tolerating the experience,
you can feel drained
You may even feel like you’re engaged in “emotional labor.”
That’s a recipe for burn-out and resentment.
Respecting
is a practice of making new value from what we perceive.
It’s not a technique,
but rather a skill that naturally emerges
from a shift in our perception.
For example,
art students,
especially those trained in the traditional crafts
learn to respect by actively perceiving value in the mundane
through drawing,
sculpting,
woodworking, etc…
Once we learn to respect,
What we perceive in the world
can energize us,
so much so that we may be so immersed in the art of respecting,
that we forget to eat.
Here’s something I learned from carpentry.
Wood is wood.
No matter my desire,
it’ll never be metal.
If I must only use wood
to make furniture,
I have no choice, but to
respect
listen to, and
consider its context.
This is not because I’m a good moral person.
It’s just physics.
This doesn’t mean we should do as the wood tells us, though.
In fact, woods don’t speak!
It just reacts to our behavior.
To realize our empathy is to
be creative in our response to the reaction of an “other,”
like wood,
so as to flow with them,
as one,
like water.
It’s when we’re in such state of togetherness
that we can use our power
with each other,
instead of
against each other.
Difficult,
but possible
through practice.
As much as salespeople would like to sell,
Customers have no obligation to buy.
In that sense,
When we want something from others—
Even if we merely want them to listen to us—
One could say that we’re (momentarily) in sales and
They are our customers.
If so, let us notice how we sell,
When we want our children to clean their room,
When we want our employees to do a better job,
When we want our clients or patients to implement our strategy.
Ever walk into a dealership
Only to walk out,
Because you didn’t like the way they sell—
Even if you loved the car?
Unless our customers are unwilling or
Unable to say “No,” to us,
If we sell a particular way,
It is only natural that they won’t buy.
