What Twenty Two Years in This Biz Has Taught Me, 1: Being Heard

What is there to say after all these years?
I can’t wait for all the learning to come in the next twenty!

What came up first for me was this memory and its lesson:
Being heard is sometimes the most important medicine.



Way back when in 2009 when I popped back into my old job for a few months before moving back to Taiwan, a woman came by. I think of her just about every time I feel a person needs nurturing first more than anything else.

She came in on a Friday night when I was the only one working in the supplements department of our mom and pop version of Whole Foods.

She seemed a little on edge and a little tired. I asked if there was anything I could help her find. She replied only that she was exhausted and she couldn’t teach math well.

Inside, was thinking, Huh? But after working with people in this way since I was 18, I knew that more would come if I just nodded and stayed open. And it did.

She was teaching a math class that semester, it was three-ish months in and the kids were breaking her. Didn’t listen. Ridiculed or were dismissive of her, broke her confidence. Wasted her energy, but she couldn’t sleep well now.

I had also been in enough classrooms in my years in Taiwan, Costa Rica, and Panama up to that point to know how that could feel. And I said as much. I agreed that kids could rattle your bones until your whole being felt brittle and she relaxed a little.

After that I just let her talk while I stayed open. She needed someone to ACTUALLY hear her, and listen to her feelings, and validate what she was feeling, even the parts that felt ugly.

When she had poured her herself out, we agreed on some simple ways to support herself nutritionally, an herb formula to help her body handle stress in a healthier way, and a promise. I asked her to return next week and I would have a list of yoga and breathwork classes in the community she could attend and some math skill booster websites.

Why didn’t I tell her to just go look up local classes and websites on her own?

Two very good reasons and I wonder if you’ve already guessed them.

The first reason was one of the same reasons I started Health Bestowing Hands in this community. Sometimes we need tools put in our hands. Not told to go looking online when we remember, have time and energy, or think to start a new habit of doing good things for ourselves before the ember of motivation cools.

Second, when we feel overwhelmed or under-supported, having someone pick up the slack for you feels good. It nourishes the part that feels overlooked, overtired, unsupported, frayed, unheard. I felt that this was right to offer this woman in this moment.

So she came back the next Friday and I had a list for her. Classes close by, free math for adults websites. She was so happy and I would love to say that the things she bought from Foodsmiths (shoutout to my old stomping ground!) had completely turned her around in the intervening week. But they hadn’t as herbs usually need more time to get working in our bodies and nutritional and emotional depletion take time to bounce back from. But she looked a little lighter and was making different daily choices that gave her a fraction more peace each day.

I spent happy years in service to my community at that job. Every day, I listened to people. I talked, sure. But I learned so much from listening to people. Eight people on a slow day, thirty plus on a busy day.

Can you guess some things that came up?

When I tell people now not to worry about TMI, that I’ve heard it all almost, I mean it. Some people didn’t say a word when they came into my department. Maybe they were having a bad day and ignored me. Others wept when I asked if there was anything I could help them with and I just stood with them waiting for the storm to pass. Most often, even if it was just a feeling I got from a person, I was seeing how their personal lives were affecting their health.

So why do I think of that one woman so frequently? Partially the relief I felt from her was so strong, it really made an impression on me. But also because she was one of the last customers I had like that before I returned to Taiwan in 2010. It was a lasting reminder that the work I can do in the community is more than the chemistry of plants and the stabilizing of nutrient deficiencies. Really being listened to with openness can be the profound medicine a person needs first.

What does it feel like to be really be listened to?