by Douglas L. Anderson, PsyD

I wear many hats.  One of those hats involves being a faculty mentor for students pursuing a doctoral degree.  One of my students is completing a project that encourages us to engage in restorative listening.  In my previous article I noted that the elderly show less cognitive decline when they are listened to.  So let's follow up on that today with a few thoughts about listening in a way that is restorative for all of us.

Our culture is in a crisis.  We are not doing well in the area of listening to one another.  We have banded into a certain kind of cultural monasticism.  We hunker down with those who think like us.  We watch and listen to only those people who affirm what we already think and believe.  And we are inclined toward the belief that everyone inside the walls is okay, while everyone outside the walls is, at best, not okay, and at worst, our enemy.  

This often gets described as a binary culture where anyone who does not think like us or share our views or opinions is an adversary and an enemy of the good.  And rather than having a thoughtful conversation about our differences we slide into what I describe as monologuing behavior.  Dialogue has been set aside and we just speak at each other without thoughtfully listening to the other person.  

Restorative listening moves us away from this binary and back toward healthy dialogue.  It recognizes that all people are equally valuable, and all views are equally worthy of thoughtful consideration.  It does not mean that everyone comes to agreement.  But it does mean that we engage in peaceable conversation.  Values like respect and love and consideration of the other drive the dialogue.  

One of the biblical writers encourages us to be quick to hear, slow to speak, and slow to anger.  Pretty good counsel!  Imagine how our conversations about difficult topics and issues might go if we took time to genuinely hear the other, listening to understand how they view an issue, why they view it that way, and why that makes a difference to them.  

I think our fear is that if we thoughtfully and genuinely listen to someone else’s point of view we might find holes in our own views and arguments, and that leads to a certain insecurity.  It complicates things.  It makes everything more complex, and that can be uncomfortable.  The threat of difference is high in our culture.

Restorative listening may be uncomfortable, but it also results in healthy relationships with people who are different from us - different in any number of ways.  As we navigate the differences and learn from one another we begin to appreciate the ambiance of difference.  We discover that difference does not need to threaten our sense of security.  Rather, it expands our world and actually moves us toward a rootedness in the beauty of difference.  

Values like love and acceptance begin to replace hatred and rejection of the other.  Gratitude begins to take over as we discover that we are grateful for the other without any need for them to be different than they are.  We discover that we don’t need to invest in trying to force others to be like us while simultaneously feeling free to be who we are.

This approach to the other (person), this type of genuine listening, is indeed restorative.  It restores healthy values.  It restores relationships.  It restores peaceability.  It restores hope.  It restores love for the other without requiring conformity.  It reminds us and enables us to love our neighbor just as we love ourselves.

If you need someone to genuinely listen to you and to help you navigate the psychological and relationship challenges you face, give our team a call.  At River Counseling Services and Sioux Falls Psychological Services we meet you where you are, offering hope.   You may schedule an appointment with the Platte office at 605-337-3444, or meet with one of our Sioux Falls Psychological Services therapists from your own computer or smartphone.  To schedule an appointment please call 605-334-2696.