Listen, Linda

Ever seen that viral YouTube video of the little kid arguing with his mother, saying again and again, “Listen, Linda....”?

The three-year-old keeps chanting, “You’re not listening to me. Listen, Linda…”

And his mom keeps reiterating, “And you’re not listening to me….You cannot have cupcakes for dinner.”

My friends and I laugh about this video all the time. Whenever anyone starts a sentence with “Listen…”, the rest of us interrupt, and say, “Listen, Linda….”

Why is this video funny?

Because listening is a lost art.

It’s so hard to listen to anyone today. There’s so much noise out there.

There’s news noise, traffic noise, COVID noise, climate noise, more cars honking and more planes flying and more people snapping at each other. Even that “get it right, get your *&!# together” noise is very loud.

And how do we deal with all that noise? We're human. We tune out.

I remember one time when my son was really young, he got mad when I was not listening to him. He said, slowly and insistently, “You’re. Not. Listening. To. Me.”

He might have even stamped his foot.

I still remember that, even 20 years later. And that was before either of us had our heads down in a cell phone. It was a moment when I was caught up in my mom-ness and rushing around cleaning or organizing or working or just being a frenetic person.

It’s so noisy out there, and even noisier inside our own heads.

I was (sort of) listening to a podcast this week, which was titled, “Listening is healing.”

But I had to restart the episode three times.

Ha! The irony of that was not lost on me. I even love this podcast! I was on an hour-long drive and wanted to use the time in a productive way. But my mind kept drifting, drifting, drifting.

Do you know some people who drift when you are talking to them? You can just tell they are mentally spinning off in another direction. They are half-listening, focused on something else, maybe even typing in the background or flipping through their phone, or mentally preparing their response.

A spouse, partner, sibling, or our own children or parents are sometimes the worst culprits— who either do this to us or we do it to them. We can tend to listen the least to those we love the most.

Listening is such a powerful way of being, though, especially today.

Some coaches and I were lamenting recently that sometimes we have clients we just don’t feel we are helping very much. Their challenge or struggle is just too persistent. But one of my friends pointed out that just being with that other human being for 45 minutes or an hour and listening to them in quiet space is a gift.

Ram Dass used to say, “All you can do for another person is be an environment in which if they wanted to come up for air, they could.”

Ahhh, yes.

I'm listening, Linda.

I hear you say, "Help me come up for air. I need oxygen."

What does it look like to help someone else come up for air? And who do you know that could use some air right about now?