1️⃣👂How To Listen
Naming Emotions
Have you ever been sick and not had a name for what you were experiencing? You have a litany of painful symptoms, and when you go to the doctor, they confidently name: “Oh, you’ve got strep." There’s instant relief to simply giving a name to your experience. Understanding is the pathway to improvement.
If you’ve ever been diagnosed with a specific mental illness, many people experience tremendous relief from simply understanding themselves. It says, “I’m not crazy,” in a way that few other things can. It normalizes and de-intensifies our experience. It says, “This thing I’m experiencing - others have experienced too. I’m not alone in this.”
In a similar way, being able to accurately name and discern between emotions can help someone experience that relief as we support them. It can be a gateway for us to help someone expand their understanding of themselves. Being able to name “shame” instead of “guilt” helps someone learn that they don’t just think they did something bad, but that they themselves are actually bad. Naming that difference opens up more territory on their map and deepens their understanding of their experience. Becoming versed in diversifying your emotional vocabulary will help you as a supporter.
Using Metaphors
Using metaphors can help us expand the map of someone’s understanding. It helps us “feel out” their world using a template to guide us as we reflect on their experience. Here are some examples:
Waves
When it feels like every time we pop up for air, a wave crashes back down on us.
Mountains
Talking about the exhaustion of the journey. Feeling like we’ll never crest to “better”.
Permission to Play
Cliff
Relapse can feel like falling off a cliff and having to start over from the bottom.
When listening to someone, try on a new metaphor. Some will stick, some won’t.
It’s okay to get things wrong. But listening can be a creative exercise. Searching for a new way to expand someone’s understanding of themselves through an image, an example, a story. Worst case, it’ll help them identify what their experience is not like that, and that’s helpful still. Practice using this tool when you support others, and it will expand your ability to creatively connect with others and offer fresh and expansive perspectives.
Castle
When things go poorly, we can build new walls and close off potential “goodness”.
