Instead of listening, I began to justify my busyness

It started with my partner asking me to listen to feelings about my busy busy busy days. And I didn’t. Oops.

Instead, I began to explain and justify why I hyper-focus and how sometimes I don’t appear to be here. Which made this particular exchange difficult: I’m pretty adept at explaining the hell out of something to the point of “can you wrap this up, Susan?”

Then I realized that the message my husband was sending is about how he feels being around my busyness.

Oh.

I am grateful that sometimes I allow myself to listen and take in the not-so-hot stuff a loved one notices in me. I see things that I might not see or that others notice and don’t say. Like how my immersion in a lot of things has been out of balance.

I am grateful that this week I was able to tap into how another feels when I’m not available. It feels awful.

Yet, most helpful is recognizing what I do that pushes another away.

One teeny bitty thing I do is cull the data of what I hear to defend or justify what I hear. I’m not listening, I’m trying to be right or good, and worse, to make the person I’m listening to wrong. When I wear my justify or defend hat, well guess what? That hat says “Out to lunch. Not emotionally available!”

I recall the time I walked into a bakery after my chemo round and the woman who waited on me with customers all around paused and looked into my eyes. I tear up remembering that moment and how it feels to be around someone who is emotionally available. It feels like care. I felt loved, seen, heard. And in a mysteriously connecting way, I felt understood.

How’s that for the gift of being able to be still enough for just a few moments?

A stunning part of this audio note: a winter wren hops over and stays with me through most of my telling. If you know anything about wrens, they move fast, flit, and jump here and there doing necessary and good work: they’re looking for insects, food to survive. And, look here—wrens can also sit still at the foot of someone who needs reminding that life is precious and time is short and not to forget to take the time to be there for another. I see my wren-like behavior.

I see my wren-like behavior. The fast and the still.

So today, I feel a preciousness about this moment with you and wren. And life.

I want to be gentle with myself when I realize that I’m not present when a loved one gives me a message that really says, “I love you but don’t feel connected now” and the core of why my response is an anger that morphs into justifying and defending (or criticizing, judging, blaming, avoiding, or withdrawing.

No matter if a loved one, co-worker, or friend says something that emotionally hooks into my anger—or if I turn on the news and hear doomsday or ugly that person or this ideology, I want to remember that I have an astonishing ability to be with my feelings and unravel what’s bugging me. Each time I attend to them, I have a better chance to listen, hear, and understand myself and others.

It’s not easy (yet).