Let’s talk (and listen)
Canada has just marked the 12th year of “Bell Let’s Talk Day” and once again it was a booming success. The campaign, sponsored by Bell Canada, aims to get people talking about mental illness and mental health to get rid of traditional stigmas, to make it okay to talk about it, and to generally generate support and care for people struggling thus.
What a simple yet powerful idea – let’s talk and let’s listen – to powerfully change a society and culture. And it works!
And it works not just for mental health issues. When the kids are fighting and yelling at one another over a toy the parent encourages them to calm down and talk about how they can fairly share playing with the toy. When a couple comes to a counsellor with a hurting and troubled marriage, the counsellor gets them to start calmly talking to one another and teaches them how to keep doing so.
As humans we share life with other people in many different contexts: home/family, neighbourhood, school, church, workplace, community organizations, sports teams, governance structures, etc. As we have all powerfully realized via COVID our lives pretty well depend on and are enriched by sharing life with other people.
What we also all know is that things are not always smooth, to put it mildly, in the relationships of our lives. Inevitably there will be rubs, disappointments, conflicts, brokenness, etc. that hurt, weaken and sometimes break our relationships.
The first and best medicine for ailing relationships is calm, caring talking and listening, undergirded by the willingness and effort to understand. It has always been thus, but unfortunately it also has always been true that we in our humanness often fail in applying these irreplaceable lubricants to our lives and relationships.
It sounds so simple but it isn’t easy. Like kids fighting for a toy when we get riled up or feel threatened or hurt we often do the talking (yelling?) part all too easily, but usually then it is more talking “at” rather than “with” the other. And in such an anxious state listening becomes very difficult and understanding almost impossible.
Because our happiness and joy in life is severely lessened by unhealthy talking, listening and understanding, it is crucially important for us to keep recommitting ourselves to their healthy practice, as individuals, couples, families, neighbourhoods, workplaces, schools, churches, community organizations, sports teams, citizens, politicians, etc.
Unfortunately, healthy talking, listening and understanding aren’t getting any easier in our contemporary world. On top of COVID, it seems we are struggling with an epidemic of polarization. Seems like people with strong beliefs/viewpoints are finding it increasingly difficult to calmly talk and listen with those who have markedly different beliefs/viewpoints. Not uncommonly people publicly condemn not just the beliefs/viewpoints of others, but the people who so think as well. Some folks launch online campaigns to silence people and viewpoints that are abhorrent to them.
We seem to be quickly becoming a polarized “cancel culture” that doesn’t know how to stop the fighting and yelling that is ripping us apart from each other.
The recent “truck convoy” that showed up in Ottawa is an example of our malady. One segment of our population is feeling upset and unheard enough that they feel motivated to drive, sometimes from thousands of kilometres away, to Ottawa to “talk”. Their talking takes the form of large rallies and a huge truck blockade in downtown Ottawa.
You don’t have to support the truckers to recognize that the hostile public reactions, especially of the politicians and the media, were not going to bring any healthy resolution to the turmoil. What was needed was some good old-fashioned talking, listening and understanding. How would things have been different if the leaders of the four main parties in Parliament had gotten together to have a joint meeting with representatives of the convoy simply to hear them out? Perhaps a good “marriage and family counselor” could have facilitated the talking and listening.
Instead the political leaders avoided trying to hear and understand what the convoy folks were trying to say, and instead belittled them and used the event to try to score political points with their more “enlightened” supporters.
For sure politicians often don’t do listening and understanding well. But are you and I any better? It is always easy to find good reasons to not talk and listen with people who are “other” to us. But the more they seem “other” to us – ie. “other” because we don’t like them and we don’t understand why they are like they are and do what they do – the more we need to pursue talking, listening and understanding with them. We can just try to write such folks off and avoid them, but that eats away at our joy and happiness in life.
The less talking, listening and understanding we do, the unhealthier and more polarized and more conflictual will be our relationships and our society.
It is indeed a simple idea – let’s talk and let’s listen – but so powerful to change our lives, our society and our culture! With whom do you have some good, old-fashioned talking and listening to do?
