How to Stop Fixing and Start Listening to Empower Yourself and Others

How many times do you find yourself just needing to vent? To get it all out there in one huge avalanche of loud, often angry stream of consciousness chatter, so you can get some space to think, and enough weight off your chest to breathe. Your fingers itch with the desperate urge to call an unsuspecting friend, who you know will ask in complete innocence ‘how are you?’, providing an opening to what has been building within you and now needs an escape.

It’s a familiar feeling, but so too is the silencing that comes when that well-meaning friend begins to offer practical advice and embarks on a one-person brainstorming session with the aim of fixing whatever the problem is that has driven you to such distraction. The silencing feeling comes like a plug to a sink that you hope won’t overflow, as you realize that actually, you didn’t want ‘help’, just to be heard.

We don’t actually want the number of the best divorce lawyer in town, we want to complain about that thing our partner did for the thousandth time. We need to research union rules and whether Citizens Advice can help us draft a letter to the human resources department at work, we just need to yell that our boss is a jerk loud enough to enable us to go back after the lunch break and finish the day.

Being truly heard means feeling as though there is a space for you to share all of your feelings, and thoughts without the other person wading in with their own experiences. We’ve all had a friend that no matter what you say, their response is ‘Oh yes, that happened to me too, but it was worse because…’

Listening to someone is an active process. It requires that you put yourself to one side for a brief moment so you can hold space for whatever needs to be expressed.

None of us are broken, so there is nothing to fix, and the majority of the time our stream of consciousness talking leads us to our own answers if that is what we are seeking.

In the women’s circles, I facilitate and with clients on a one-to-one basis the effects of being heard are often profound because sadly it is actually very rare that we feel completely accepted and given permission to be our honest, messy selves.

As women, especially, we are encouraged from a very young age to be the ‘make it all better’ mothers whether we have children or not. It is a fundamental part of our job as nurturers, to take the pain away and right any wrongs that befall those we love.

But in riding into the rescue, we stop the person from rescuing themselves. We rob them of the opportunity to release everything that is threatening to overwhelm them and come to their own instinctual conclusions.

“People love to talk but hate to listen. Listening is not merely not talking, though even that is beyond most of our powers; it means taking a vigorous, human interest in what is being told us. You can listen like a blank wall or like a splendid auditorium where every sound comes back fuller and richer.”

― Alice Duer Miller

It is difficult to process all that we experience silently inside our own heads. By voicing our experience, by giving a name to the sensations be they physical or emotional, we immediately begin to move them away from ourselves, and in that distance comes clarity and understanding.

So how can this urge to fix what is not broken possibly be used in a positive way?

Well, have you heard the idea that the traits (good or bad) that we see in others are a reflection of ourselves? We tend to reduce the people around us into simplified versions that are easier to judge and make sense of. Even when we hold these people as dear friends, they may have qualities that may annoy us or that seem to fill our perception of them when they come to mind. These people are acting as mirrors to the aspects of ourselves we dislike and fear others seeing. We are pointing the finger and loudly complaining, in the hopes that it distracts us from having to confront ourselves.

But what does this have to do with utilising our ‘fix it’ mentality? The answer is simple, we need to listen… really listen to what we want to say to the other person, because while we are advising them, we are actually lecturing ourselves, and it’s a lecture worth paying attention to.

How can we put all of this into practice?

One answer to fighting the urge to give advice is to listen wholly and completely to the person, allowing for all that is present, whether that be tears, rage, or gossip.

When the person is ready ask them if they’d like your advice or thoughts, rather than waiting until it’s your turn to speak so you can dazzle them with your wisdom

If they do want to hear your opinion, don’t just talk at them, listen to your words, as they will be just as much for you as they are for the other person.