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Listening is a way of showing hospitality.

When you invite people in for a visit, you probably make at least some minimal preparations.  So you dust the obvious surfaces, straighten up the piles and stacks of stuff, create a space on the kitchen table, and maybe suck up some of the top layers of cat hair on the furniture.  Okay, maybe not.  If you live in a frat house you might not do any of this . . . unless you're inviting a sorority over . . . in which case, by the time the women arrive, your place will look like Martha Stewart rode through it on her broom.

The point is, we usually expend some effort when we play host and invite others into our space.  More often than not, when they arrive we inquire about their trip, their health, etc. as a way of making them comfortable in our presence.

In a good conversation, both people will expend some effort at creating a comfortable space for the words of the other to sit down in and get comfortable.  It's simple hospitality . . . old-fashioned courtesy . . . a sign of respect.

Sometimes it is easier to run that vacuum, straighten up the clutter . . . or (gasp!) even wash out the toilets . . . than it is to listen to what the other has to say.  When the conversation veers into religion, politics . . . or even which way is up   . . . strong and contradictory opinions invested with incredible energy usually arise. 

When that happens, conversation often ceases and devolves into a "yell and shout", much like some TV panel discussions about the latest news.  Everyone is talking over everyone else.  At that point, hospitality has been lost; it becomes a matter of survival of the fittest, as each clubs the other over the head with their "certainties."

As I said in the first of these Lenten observations, if we would listen well, we will need to find some ways to keep our egos from drifting off, changing the subject, interrupting, judging, interpreting and competing with what the other is trying to say.  (To root these remarks in an appropriate Lenten text, consider Jesus praying in the Garden of Gethsemane.  He really has to wrestle with his ego . . . with his very natural desire to take care of himself, even if that meant abandoning his cause.  He prays that he won't have to go through with things that would, almost certainly, lead to his death.  Then he concludes, "Nevertheless, not my will but Yours be done."  Even though our wrestling will be of different order of magnitude, wrestle with our ego we must if we are to show our partners hospitality.)

In this posting, the suggestion I want to make is this:  before you do anything else, show yourself some hospitality!  I know, I know:  that doesn't sound sufficiently self-abnegating to be in a Lenten piece!  But bear with me.

Whenever we are trying to listen to another and find that we're wanting to interrupt, judge, dismiss, etc., it is because some part of us believes we are being threatened.  Perhaps it is something in the other's tone, their posture, how their facial muscles are arranged, the look in their eyes.  A part of us may read that as a threat of some sort.  It may be that the other has simply and pleasantly said, "Well, I kind of disagree with what you're saying . . . ."  Even so, that same part of us might become anxious, particularly if one of our unconscious "filters" twists what the other has said into something that feels like they said, in an attacking tone, "You know, you've really got some stupid ideas!  Let me set you straight."

Wow!  No wonder we feel threatened!  In that case, dear Brutus, the threat, may lie in us and not in the other. 

Of course, it just may be that our conversation partner is acting abrasively, carelessly, even unkindly.  In that case the threat is coming from them!

Regardless, there is some part of us that feels threatened and if we are to succeed in listening to the other person we will need to listen to the part of us that feels threatened!  That is, we'll need to show that part of us hospitality and create a space for it where it can experience the rest of us taking its alarm seriously.

If you are a parent, you know how persistent your child can be when needing your attention . . . and particularly so when they are scared of some threat, real or imagined.  They pull on your pant legs or dress and call out to you until you do something to let them know you hear them.  If you're not a parent, maybe you have a younger sibling or a niece or nephew or know some other child and can imagine them doing that. 

What happens if we don't stop to listen to that child?  The next thing you know, they're pushing over the lamp, or hitting their sibling, or pulling the cat's tail, or something else that acts out what their talking out has failed to communicate.  Things have now gone from bad to worse!

Similarly, all of us get scared from time to time, and when we do the part of us that identifies the threat raises a persistent ruckus in an attempt to get our attention.  What happens if we don't pause to show it hospitality?  What happens if we don't listen to this part of ourselves?  Like the child, we will act out our fear.

We typically do that by tuning out our conversation partner, changing the subject, or knocking over the lamp by interrupting them, judging them, dismissing them, and so forth.  Cats don't like to have their tails pulled, and sometimes they respond by turning on the one who's doing the pulling.  Likewise, our conversation partner can experience our frightened, defensive reactivity as an attack on them.  Pretty soon they're pulling on our tail!

So I'll say it again:  the very first thing we need to do is to show our own selves some hospitality by listening to what's happening inside of us and taking it seriously. 

I spoke with Advocatus the other day about this idea.  He looked at me with a resigned expression on his aged face and said, "Snark, I try to listen to my body, but more often than not it seems to have taken a vow of Benedictine silence."  So here are just a few things to "listen" for . . . to have an internal awareness of . . . when you're trying to listen to another person.  The presence of any of these might mean that some part of you believes there's a threat of some sort hanging in the air.

•         Your pulse increases
  

•         Your respiration rate increases and is rather shallow . . . in the upper part of your chest
  
•         You find yourself thinking of a perfect squelch you can deliver at the earliest opportunity
  
•         You start to squirm in your chair
  
•         You find it hard to keep making comfortable eye contact with your conversation partner
  
•         An expletive comes into your mind to describe your partner and their words
  
•         You hear inside of you something shouting an objection or a denial of what the other is saying . . . maybe the word that comes to mind is "no!" or "but . . ."
  
•         You can hardly wait for them to get to the end of their sentence so that you can have your say.
  
  

We all get there!  It's our response to a very specific part of our ego warning us of what it thinks is some sort of danger.  Neurologically, this is a very ancient part of your brain located deep inside of it and sitting just above where your spinal cord goes into your brain.  Brain scientists refer to two tiny structures in this area as the amygdala and the hippocampus.  Those Latin names, plus $3.45 will get you a Venti Americano at your neighborhood Starbucks.

For our purposes, we'll just call that area of your brain the "Alligator Brain," since these tiny structures constitute pretty much the full extent of reptile's brains.  In reptiles, and in you and me, the purpose of this part of our brain is to monitor what's happening, to look for threats, and to inject some adrenalin into your bloodstream preparing you to either run or fight for your life in the presence of a perceived threat.  That's not an exaggeration!  Over the eons this fight or flight response evolved to help us defend against physical threats:  like a saber-toothed tiger, a drunken clansman, a poisonous snake . . . or, if you happen to be an alligator . . . another alligator. 

The problem is, most of our conversations don't present these sorts of physical threats.  Instead, they usually involve  emotional threats, or threats to our perceived sense of status or worth.  Still . . . and rather unfortunately . . . our internal response is the same as though they were physical!  As far as our Alligator Brain is concerned, our conversation partner has become a threat, an enemy.  We're ready to man the battlements!  We are in no mood to show hospitality to the saber-toothed tiger sitting across from us!  Not to put too fine a point on it, alligators are not distinguished by their ability to listen to one another with interest and caring.

So this Lent, part of our "discipline" will be to show the alligator brain some hospitality by learning to listen to it.

In the next posting, I'll share with you a few strategies for calming your inner alligator.  That's got to happen if we are to become good listeners.

Till then, be well.

Snark

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