When You Reacted To Someone's Story, Did You Help Them or Harm Them?

Notes from the sidelines of conversation

Photo by Stephanie Klepacki on Unsplash

It’s last summer, and my mother and I are having coffee with my dear friend Toni who is in town for a few days along with her mother. Toni is in her fifties like me. Toni’s mother is in her eighties like my mother. And we arranged this meeting because in the grand scheme of humans our moms have walked a very similar yet uncommon path. For example, they’re both white and had the gall to fall in love with Black men back when it was considered transgressive for white women to do so. And they both raised biracial children when biracial wasn’t cool.

The four of us sit around a metal bistro table under an awning outside the corner cafe. Our moms begin to introduce themselves. As we sip our iced lattes and teas and break off pieces of scones, the table top tips back and forth in response to too heavy an elbow or a forearm. Attention is required lest you topple someone else’s drink. We make do.

Our moms tell about their childhoods and school and work and love and serendipity, and I can’t help but reflect on the set of improbable encounters that led to Toni’s or my birth. Toni nods at her mother’s familiar stories, and when my mother speaks I do the same. When our mothers’ stories begin to encompass the years of our childhoods, Toni and I chime in. The conversation expands from a singles match to doubles with unexpected volleys and surprising returns.

Things go a bit afoul when Toni starts talking about middle school. She tells of a soccer teammate who would routinely follow her to the sideline and breathe the N-word loud and low into the nape of Toni’s neck. Of how her coach did nothing about it.

Toni finishes her tale, looks around, looks down, stirs her drink, then adds, “I don’t think I’ve ever told that to anybody.” There is silence. I want to respond. But I don’t want to usurp the role of mother hearing of a child’s trauma for the first time.

After four or five seconds, my mom breaks the awkwardness by opining on a different topic. I smile and put my hand gently toward her and say, “Could we hold on a sec? Could we hold space for Toni for just a moment?” Then, looking Toni in the eyes I say, “I’m so sorry that you were treated so badly on the soccer team in middle school. And did you say you’ve never told anyone before? Thank you for trusting us with this story. Do you want to say more?” Toni nods and speaks for another three or four minutes and I work hard not to let the conversation be taken elsewhere until Toni is ready to release it. When she is done, the conversation moves on. The sun slides through the sky. Our cups empty. As we walk to our cars, Toni thanks me. She says she is sad but not surprised that her mother could not engage in the conversation about the soccer teammate.

I drive away ruminating over Toni’s mother’s silence. Like Toni, I have stories I’m only recently starting to tell. And like Toni, when I open up and share them, I’m hoping to my family will care, and engage, and not be in a hurry to move on or discount what I’ve said.

_____

Fast forward to last month when I’m in a rocking chair facing about a dozen first-graders who are staring at me from the carpeted floor of their classroom where they are seated criss-cross-applesauce, expectant.

I’m in their class to talk about some early childhood experiences that made me feel not so great about having brown skin. But small children are not really my wheelhouse, nor my typical audience for such a big message. This school is placing huge trust that I can meaningfully connect with their youngest humans. I want to be successful but I’m nervous.

I open the possibility for connection by talking about myself at their age. I share a story from when I was seven and was swimming in a backyard pool with a bunch of friends when all of a sudden one friend gets hauled out of the pool by his mom because she is mad that her white son is swimming in the same water as a brown-skinned child like me. I share a story from when I was ten and a teacher didn’t want to let me participate in a special opportunity at school because he didn’t believe that I was capable of doing more challenging work despite the fact that I had aced the qualifying exam.

When I am done sharing these and other stories, they shoot their hands straight up into the air and look at me with eyes that want to be called on. That’s when I realize that the biggest lessons I have to offer are still to come. I take a deep breath and look at the horizon and think about how I’m going to do this. Then I cross my fingers and cross my heart and let it fly.

“When someone tells a story about their life, which is called being vulnerable,” I tell them, “there are four ways to respond, ranging from very harmful to very helpful.”

“The worst way to respond is with Disagreement or Doubt,” I tell them. “This sounds like, ‘Oh, that didn’t happen,’ or ‘I don’t believe you,’ or ‘Don’t be so sensitive,’ or ‘So what? It doesn’t matter.’ This kind of response makes the storyteller feel sad.”

“The next better type of response is Silence.”

“Even better than silence is to Relate,” I tell them. “This would be when their story reminds you of something that happened in your life and you tell that story.” I clarify: “While it’s very nice to be able to relate to someone’s story, the reason it’s not the absolute best way to respond at first is that you end up taking the attention off of them and put it all on you.”

“Best of all,” I tell them, “is to Demonstrate That You Were Listening, and only after that show them you can Relate. You do that by thanking them for sharing the story, and repeating back to them some of the things you remember them saying. If after that you want to share how their story reminds you of something in your life, now it’s appropriate to do so.”

Hands shoot straight up in the air once again, and this time I begin calling on them one by one:

• “Thank you for sharing the story about the swimming pool. It reminds me of the time when…”

• “Thank you for sharing the story about the teacher. It sounds like it made you mad. I got mad once when my teacher…”

• “I would have been mad if my grownups made me get out of a pool because they didn’t like the skin color of the kids I was swimming with, and I would have said ‘Nuh uh I’m not going to listen to you.’” (This one made me tear up.)

• “I think you were brave for telling that story about the teacher.”

I was so proud of these small children who belonged to other people. I won’t soon forget their earnest eyes and the certainty of their voices.

_____

I’m not saying it’s easy to hold space for another human being who is in the act of vulnerably sharing. We may feel discomfort listening to the person’s story, and in our attempt to protect ourselves from revisiting the feeling we may remain silent or change the subject. Or, we may have been taught that such things are not to be discussed in public so our instinct is to act like it didn’t happen and just move on. Or we may be incredibly triggered by what was shared and our own story comes barreling out of us with the hope that we will now have a receptacle in which our own story can be held and heard.

And of course there are responses beyond the four I offered my first-grade friends. Offering advice is tricky, for example; it can feel very unwelcome if the person just wants to be heard, but it can be useful as long as the person is first asked, “Do you want advice or do you just want to vent, either is fine with me.” Deeper compassion asks “Do you want to say more?” Even deeper compassion invites, “What do you need from me in this moment?” When my brilliant niece asked me that very question after a difficult family encounter, I told her that just being asked the question was what I needed. And it was.

We are all so desperate not to feel alone in our pain. If we’re willing to do the work to grow, we can all get better at listening in a way that helps rather than causes further harm.

_____

How are your listening skills? How can you improve them? Can you think of a time when you or someone you were talking with did a great job of listening? Can you think of a time when you or someone you were talking with was not adequately heard after sharing a tough story?

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