Listening is where love begins

One of my favorite things in life is to listen, genuinely.

Why?

Because, as the beloved Mr. Rogers once said, “Listening is where love begins: listening to ourselves and then to our neighbors.”

And I think it’s worth noting that it’s not just about listening to others that is the beginning of love. But also listening to ourselves. And, first.

It’s really important that we understand ourselves, our tendencies, and how we “tick.”

Why?

Because listening to ourselves and what we need will really help us in all of our relationships. Our relationship with self, others, and even God, too. Listening to ourselves is the gateway to letting love in to those spaces in our lives and our hearts that need tending to. When we meet ourselves and our stories with love and compassion, when actually learn to heal. And, I find that gentleness with myself in those spaces, as I listen to who I am and what I need, is a genuine gift.

Not everyday do we find time and space to be heard by others. But, we can always find time and space to be heard by ourselves. We can find time to keep good company with ourselves.

And, just as much as it’s important to listen to ourselves, I love that Mr. Rogers says that listening isn’t all that’s required to love. It’s simply just the beginning of it all.

That’s such a delightful thing to think about; that to love another requires genuine listening, but that’s just the beginning of the dance of love. To listen is to open up our posture towards another, to get curious. It gives us the opportunity to let another feel seen, heard, and understood by us. And that is a powerful experience.

Listening is a gift to the other, and when it’s directed even towards ourselves, is very much a gift too. Why? Because it’s a gift when we can offer a posture of curiosity to whatever we’re experiencing, too.

I love that listening is, in essence, the gateway to genuine connection and love. And when I think of listening well, I think of letting the other person say their entire piece, without thinking of what we want to say, queuing it up, and then just waiting impatiently for the other person to finish their part. It’s not about us.

Listening isn’t about having an answer readily available immediately after someone begins talking. Listening, I’d say, isn’t even really about having any answer ready most of the time anyways. It’s about not having all the answers, actually.

I find that the best relationships I’m in, the most treasured friendships I exist within, aren’t about having all the answers for each other. Oftentimes, it’s just about offering our presence to each other. There’s something really powerful in presence.

I read once in a quick “Our Daily Bread” devotional years and years ago about service dogs that came to children who had suffered and survived a mass elementary school shooting and, when the children were asked to open up to the therapists there, they wouldn’t. But, when the dogs simply offered their presence to these beloved children, they began to open up. First with tears and sobs and wails, and then with words.

I know this is a disturbing experience and example of the power of presence, but it does also help us to understand the weightiness of genuine listening. We don’t need answers. We don’t oftentimes even need words. We just need to hold and give space to the whole range of human emotions and experiences, to just let things be as they will.

And so, as Mr. Rogers once said that listening is the beginning of love, it really is just that. It’s like a big, beautiful gift we can give to someone else. And, when they’re ready to open it, it leads to trust being built, the beginning of an authentic connection, and the realization for the other that: we’re there to be with them. We are for them. We want to offer our presence, and all of the power that’s in that.

I don’t think we typically realize just how powerful that presence can be, actually. Because so often people don’t have the right spaces to speak up, to process, to just be seen and to be heard. The power that’s accessible in presence is that the other realizes they don’t need to have a guard up, they can move towards vulnerability and being seen, and, when listening leads to love, that vulnerability is honored. It’s the essence of being seen, and loved. Man, I love the idea of a relationship like that.

And, I didn’t give much space for this in today’s post, but, listening is the gateway to love for ourselves first, as Mr. Rogers said so poignantly, and then to our neighbors. We can’t love others well unless we first love ourselves.

It’s worth taking time with ourselves today to explore this beautiful gift of presence, and giving ourselves that same gift, too. We can love ourselves. We can trust ourselves enough to get curious with our own hearts and stories, too, and let our guards down around ourselves too. We can do that by first, and most powerfully, listening. Let’s listen, and let things be as they will.

When we’re seen and met with love, we change. And there’s a lot of power, beauty, and goodness in that.