The Power Of Feeling Heard

My wife went to therapy with her ex-husband today. He's a shit.

She's been feeling like she goes to therapy, the therapist doesn't listen to her, her ex-husband doesn't listen to her and actively talks over her, interrupting her. She certainly doesn't feel like her mother listens to her. She doesn't feel like her second attorney listened to her, or the guardian ad litem. The attorney who presided over her divorce is defending her ex-husband and has aided in turning her life and the boys' lives upside down, so he really didn't listen to her. Or maybe he did, and then took deliberate action against her because of some as-yet-unknown reason. Then she talks with her attorney now, and the attorney tells her that she's trying to change her ex-- which reveals that her attorney doesn't get her. Maybe the attorney is listening, but saying that my wife is upset because she's trying to change her ex is completely incorrect and demonstrates a lack of understanding regarding the issue. Which makes my wife feel unheard again. Then my mother tells me the same thing as the attorney, and both of us feel unheard.

Then, today, the therapist allows my wife to say what she wanted to say. The therapist helps my wife in communicating those thoughts and feelings to my wife's combative ex. The therapist, in doing this, not only successfully listened to my wife, and not only demonstrated to my wife that she not only heard my wife but UNDERSTOOD the points my wife was concerned with, but she assisted in attempting to communicate those thoughts to my wife's ex.

Nothing has changed. The ex hasn't acted any differently. The boys aren't any safer than they were before. Literally, nothing has changed. Except that somebody who has some power in this whole mess actually heard my wife. That's it. And that has made an enormous difference.

My 15 year-old and I got into a 2 hour-long conversation last night about the economy and history and global domination and The Art Of War and cheerleaders and his father. And there were several things that came up that made the parent in me want to ask more questions, like, "does your father do this to your brother," and "has this happened for a long time," but those questions were not important right then. RIGHT THEN it was most important for my boy to feel heard. He doesn't feel heard most of his life, and it was far more important for him to feel heard, to feel understood, to feel that sense of connection you get when the person or people across from you respond in a manner that lets you know they hear you. You are gotten.

It seems to amaze me every time it happens, but the power of feeling heard is almost unmatched. I don't think feeling heard makes you feel loved, but I also don't think you can feel loved and not feel heard.

It would be a world-altering event if, for one minute every day, we tried to make the person across from us FEEL HEARD. And your needs would be taken care of, too, because the person across from you would be trying to make you feel heard. I wonder what would happen if we could make that minute happen once every year, even.