Want to Make a Change? Start With Listening

Want to hear something incredibly embarrassing?

I’ve been having the same argument with my husband for twenty-nine years!!!

I mean, we haven’t been using the same words each time, but the same issue keeps popping up over and over. This past week, it popped up again. I sat down with him and (this is the incredibly humiliating part to admit….) I decided to fully listen to his side.

Yup. For 29 years, I have been forcefully defending my side and my hurt. This year, I decided to fully listen to him and understand where he was coming from. I determined to offer no defense or argument of any kind. I listened to completely understand him.

This is not an easy thing to do. Obviously, it isn’t easy for me…it took 29 years of yelling at the man I love to finally admit, maybe I should try something different. Maybe I should listen. Maybe I’m not entirely correct in this. Maybe he has a side that I haven’t fully seen.

Turns out, I was correct. I didn’t understand where he was coming from at all. Even after 29 years of him trying to tell me. It is crazy to think about how much I love him but I was still so wrong and hurting him so much. I felt confident that I was right and just needed to make him understand me. I needed him to see that all of my actions came from a good place and he was simply misinterpreting them. Surprisingly (to me) I didn’t have the whole picture. I was never going to if I didn’t listen. But I thought I knew his side. I thought I understood and he was the one who didn’t.

The lesson I learned in relating to Brian, needs to be applied to race relations in our country. Especially if you are white! You need to listen without defending how right you (think you) are. You need to realize you are hurting black people in ways you may not be aware of. Your heart is probably in a good place but your message is not getting through in your actions. You probably have underlying attitudes you need to confront. There are probably all kinds of things you are blind to but you are never going to see them if you don’t listen.

Trust me. Just listen. You will be surprised by what you learn about the other person and yourself. I truly believe it is the first step to making big changes.