can you hear me now?

 

What good is a story without someone to tell it? What happens to it if no one is around to hear it?

Communication is both crucial and sometimes difficult in health care. This week I was reminded of the importance of listening to what our patients have to say...and what a complicated process it is to be able to hear, much less understand what it is they're trying to tell us. I was reminded that the process of communication between us is tenuous and delicate. It is mind-boggling that it works at all. 

I am re-reading "The Road Home~A Contemporary Exploration of the Buddhist Path" by Ethan Nichtern, founder of the Interdependence Project, who teaches meditation and Buddhist studies across the country.

He talks about mindful listening--listening as a meditative practice--which might, or might not resonate with you, but then he describes the process. He notes that when a person speaks:

"...the vibrations (tiny movements of air that carry sound across physical space) funnel into these cute, weird-shaped little holes on the sides of the other person's head called "ears." At that point, the other person's brain (the listener's) determines what these vibrations mean based on her own past associations and experiences, experiences that are incalculably distinct from your own, encapsulated within the subjectivity of a very different human experience. Then, the other person has to reach down into, and somehow connect with her own soup of feelings, memories, and emotions to see if what your vocal cords just emitted resonates with her own lived experience. If, somehow, this has all gone well and succeeded, the other person nods at you approvingly and says something like, "I know what you mean!"

Think of it this way. Imagine you are lying in bed at night and you hear the rumble of thunder in the distance. It might be five miles away, or ten, or twenty. If it were close enough, you might actually feel the vibrations that carry its sound. But not only has it travelled for miles, it has passed through rain and fog, through the trees in your yard, through the panes of glass in your windows, and into your funny little ears...where it sets your ear drum vibrating exactly as it must if you are to hear its deep rumble. The ear drum then transmits the vibration to three tiny bones in your inner ear, and they stimulate the auditory nerve in a way that somehow preserves the "rumble." The auditory nerves then transmit the sound to the auditory center in the brain. Voila! You realize you are hearing the sound of thunder from far away, not the dog snoring at the foot of the bed. Not the garage door closing when your teen misses curfew. Not your own stomach rumbling.

"Can you hear me now?"

~attribution unknown~

But it doesn't stop there. You might experience a strong emotional reaction to the sound. If you were scared of lightening and thunder as a child, you might still experience fear. Your heart races and your hands sweat. If your area needs rain, you might feel relief and gratitude that a storm is on the way. Or, perhaps you're annoyed because your sleep has been interrupted.

All this because of a rumble of thunder. Imagine what goes on in your brain when you're listening to the story your patient is telling you! When a Mozart symphony brings you to tears. When your partner whispers, "I love you."

This has always been one of my favorite meditations: contemplating the process of hearing and how sound waves seem to contradict everything I know about physics. When you break it all down, when you understand all that has to happen with accuracy, precision, and perfect timing for you to receive, experience, interpret, and react to what you hear, it is mind-boggling. Unimaginable. Seemingly impossible. The thought that what I am experiencing can't possibly be happening strikes me as absurd. It makes me laugh every time! And that's just hearing. Imagine what vision involves! Reflect for a moment on the processes involved in retrieving remote memories, in imagination and creativity. In experiencing grief. In feeling love.

"The quieter you become,

the more you can hear."

~Ram Dass~

jan