Tommy Hellsten
JOURNAL
Learning to Listen
When I saw my first client as a therapist more than forty years ago, I thought they needed me to solve a problem. I knew that I wasn’t capable of solving anyone’s problems, so I strove to create the right impression.
I wanted very much to prove that I was a “good therapist,” because I knew that I wasn’t. At the time, I had little professional experience as a therapist, and my life experience wasn’t extensive either.
BACK THEN, I didn’t know that my client wanted to become heard. They didn’t need me to solve a problem—they needed to be seen and heard.
When I began to realize this, my work became much easier. The performance pressure and struggle ceased. I realized that my main task was to be present. This presence would enable me to listen and the client to be heard.
My fear of inadequacy was replaced by restfulness and permission to be who I really am. This created a positive chain: when I felt that I had permission to be who I am, I was free to focus on listening, and when I began to listen, I also began to hear.
TODAY I KNOW from experience that being seen and heard is our deepest need. When I listen and hear, this need is fulfilled without my having to struggle or fumble for answers. Restful presence creates an experience of being heard.
Why is the need to be seen and heard so crucial to us?
When we become seen and heard, we feel a connection: I have become understood—someone else has respectfully invaded my archetypal loneliness. I’m no longer an outsider, a stranger. Through this connection, I have become a member of humankind.
LOVE IMMEDIATELY appears where connection has been created. Why is that?
True connection reveals our vulnerability, which is an invitation for love to arrive. Vulnerability evokes compassion, and this experience of compassion is what creates connection. Love reaches us through compassion.
ESSENTIALLY, our need to be seen and heard is a need to be loved, and this need is inherent in us: we have a “structural need” for love. When we understand this, we also understand why listening is so important.
Through experiences of being heard, we gradually become who we are in our innermost being. We have the power to give others the freedom to be who they really are and who they want to be.