Good listening requires keeping your mouth shut...

Most of us consider ourselves good listeners. We consider ourselves empathetic… we feel the pain when someone is telling about his problem. We suffer with them. We understand. The problem comes when we stop listening about halfway through and begin to go through our own experiences to “understand” their pain.

I took a class one time in my college days where we learned to listen. Some of the students weren’t very good at it… according to the teacher. “Quit trying to plan your response before they finish,” the teacher said. So, I tried again to show the other students by example what a good listener they should be. Soon, I realized she had been talking to me. Bless her heart, she didn’t understand me. I was listening. I just couldn’t help but try to relate my own experiences… to help them.

The other day, I was in the middle of complaining about my wrist pain when it hit me that my listener had zoned me out. “I can’t make a fist with my right hand,” I said.

The man behind the counter said, “You should go see my doctor. I’ve had carpal tunnel surgery twice on this hand and once on this one. He’s really good. He said when my thumb started getting numb, that I would know it was back.” He nodded with knowing authority.

“But this is in my wrist,” I said, “not my thumb.” I pointed to the swelling just below my hand and explained that the pain went from my ring finger down to my elbow. Not my thumb.

“Yep,” he said. “That’s carpal tunnel. Dr. Soand-so could fix you up. Let me find a piece of paper, and I’ll give you his name.”

Once again, I explained that I had already had an Xray and an MRI. No carpal tunnel. No torn tendon and no cancerous lump. By this time, he had pulled out a small piece of paper from the drawer and written a street name in a nearby city. “I can’t remember what his name is, but he is a whiz. It’s on that street just down from the hospital. I’m sure you can find it. I’d go back to him if I have it again.”

As a retired teacher, I tend to want to keep at something until my audience understands. My husband called it nagging. So, it is no surprise that I took time to pull up my sleeve on the other arm and showed him my scar from my own carpal tunnel surgery. I showed the two arms together and pointed out the inability to touch my ring finger to my palm. I demonstrated how I could not flatten my hand on the counter.” This time, I nodded with knowing authority.

“Well, good luck,” he said as he handed me my receipt. “I hope that thumb gets better.”

We really shouldn’t bother other people with our illnesses, but it is in my nature to share. I don’t keep se- crets very well. As my grandmother said, I don’t like to suffer in silence. So, when I bore someone with the details of my current health crises, I should not expect them to understand.

After all, I have some weird diseases… nothing life threatening… nothing contagious… nothing anyone can pronounce. These diseases… and there are several of them… are just hanging around ready to raise their weird little auto-immune heads and get my attention occasionally.

Last time I started in complaining to my friend, she said, “Why don’t you just get a common cold, next time.” Now, she was listening.