Lessons from my mother

I’ve reached that point in life where I’m coming to accept the inevitable truth that I, Carolyn Holdsworth, am becoming my mother. 

It’s a good thing – my mother is the most determined, resilient, and patient woman I know. I’ve been fortunate to inherit many of her qualities but there’s one in particular I seem of have in high doses and that’s this: whenever something happens that seems unusual to me – something out of the ordinary – I find myself thinking “I wonder why?” Then I spend the next number of minutes/hours/days/years hypothesizing out loud until I come up with an answer that I think is reasonable.

I’m talking anything out of the ordinary. If Jim has a headache, hmm, maybe you’re dehydrated. If the neighbours have people over in their backyard, hmm, it must be someone’s birthday. 

I do it so often I don’t even think about it. It’s my superpower. My strength. But strengths and weaknesses are on the same continuum and asking “why?” too often can turn quickly from endearing inquisitiveness into debilitating (and annoying) analysis. So I try to keep it in check. 

Nevertheless, there’s one area where my superpower has come in pretty handy and it’s this:

Understanding how to listen.

One of the most pervasive messages I’ve heard from the Black and Indigenous People of Colour (BIPOC) community over the past few weeks is that white people need to stop putting themselves at the center and instead, listen and amplify BIPOC voices. 

It makes me think of a story I heard about a scientist who wanted to plant vegetable gardens in impoverished villages in Africa so the people could grow their own food. The scientists found that the soil by the river was incredibly fertile. They couldn’t understand why the locals hadn’t tried planted there. Silly locals.

So they went ahead and planted those gardens and the growth was better than expected! A complete success. Until one morning an elephant came down the river and ate it. The whole thing. Every plant. The scientist turned to a nearby local and said, “Why didn’t you tell us there were elephants?” The locals replied, “You didn’t ask.”

If we truly want to help, it makes sense that we would get curious about what the people who are struggling – who are actually experiencing the thing feel they need, rather than decide for ourselves what we think they need. 

I say it makes sense but I’m terrible at it. Putting this approach into practice is challenging and here’s why: 

I like to feel smart and I like to be right.

And I’m not the only one. 

Generally speaking, we humans tend to feel pretty sure of our opinions. We’ve spent a lifetime pulling them together, after all, and we’re proud of them. Anything that challenges those opinions tends to elicit a little defensiveness – or a lot of it.

I mentioned listening to Brené Brown and Harriet Learner last week in a podcast about how to apologize. They also talked about the importance of non-defensive listening and how to do it. Learner says that when we’re criticized we immediately go into defensive mode. Criticism doesn’t even have to be explicit. We can feel criticized just by someone disagreeing with us. We’re fragile creatures.

Fortunately, Learner has a few suggestions for turning the volume down on our defensiveness. Here were a few I found particularly helpful:

Recognize your defensiveness. Just recognizing it can give us a little bit of distance from it. Watch for signs like feeling tense, looking for an opportunity to interrupt with your point of view, or listening for inaccuracies in what the other person is saying (I do all of these things, by the way. Every one.).

Listen only to understand. Listen to discover what you can agree with and do not interrupt, don’t argue, don’t correct fact. If you have opposing points that are legitimate, all the more reason to save them for another conversation when the person can really hear you (and isn’t upset). 

Ask questions about whatever you don’t understand. Very often a criticism is vague and it’s very helpful to say “can you give me a specific example, because that’s going to help me to better understand.” Aim to better understand the person’s experience. 

Find something that you can agree with. You might only agree with 7% of what the person said – focus on that first. If you can’t find something you agree with, tell them that you appreciate them bringing it up and that you will be thinking about it. 

I can’t say it’s easy, but I can tell you that my husband and I both work on this a lot and when I manage to swallow my defensiveness long enough to actually hear what he’s saying and really try to understand, we resolve our issues in a quarter of the time. 

Better than that – we both walk away feeling heard, validated, and very, very loved.

I once described “swallowing my defensiveness” to a friend like I was that little guy on top of a wall that we used to draw in school. Remember that little guy? Where all you could see were his fingers and his head and nose hanging over the top? That’s how it feels to me. My defensiveness is that wall, and if I want to not react and actually hear what the other person is saying, I need to hoist myself over it by my fingertips using my nose as leverage.

Fortunately, I inherited from my mother the one quality I need to get it done: Curiosity.

I want to know what’s on the other side of that wall even more than I want to be right, which is saying something. Whether it’s my husband, a friend, or a complete stranger, I want to know why they feel what they feel. Why they believe what they believe.

Still, that wall is a helluva climb.

I’ve already noticed as I’m reading more about white supremacy and racism that I’ve had lots of moments of defensiveness. Not because I’m a jerk, and certainly not because I don’t believe that BIPOC should have as much freedom and respect and safety as I do, but because I am a human being and I’m not good at being told I’ve done something wrong. I’m just not. 

But I’m getting better, or at least I’m catching it. That’s a start.

With that in mind, here are a couple things I’ve read this week that, although they had my hackles up initially, I ultimately found to be very informative… once I was able to get up over my wall and take them in.

This article titled What is Racism? by Dr. Laura Morlock is the best explanation I’ve heard so far about what this word really means. If you’re white and you’ve ever found yourself saying, “I’m not racist,” I encourage you to give this a read.

And this article called Doing Right by Black People – and Not Just When It’s Convenient was written by a white woman for white people. The author, Sherry Kappel, calls out a lot of things that I know I’ve done in the past (and especially in the past few weeks) in a way that’s firm but still generous. I learned a lot.

If all goes well and people really start to dig in to these issues in a way that they haven’t before, we’re bound to have many uncomfortable conversations over the next several months and years. We’d do well to start practicing for them now.

Personally, I’m looking at it like training for a marathon. I’ve never trained for a marathon in all my life but if I did, I would start with a distance that's doable, repeat it often until I get better, then go a little further.

If we do make it to the finish line, whatever that looks like, it’ll be one conversation at a time.

C.

PS. July is the month I would usually see all of you at the summer festivals. Since those won’t be happening, instead of sitting around feeling sad, I’ve decided to open my online store on what would have been Home County weekend, July 24-26. You’ll have early access, of course, since you’re on this list of my favourite people. I’ll send details a little closer to the date.

I may have a new product for you. Maybe. If I can get it done in time. Stay tuned.

Next week: Part 4 - Learning to change (They're called blind spots for a reason)