I Can’t Hear You

Most of us likely have recollections of moments of upset and anger when we were told by a well-meaning grown-up to come back later, when we were no longer as upset or angry.

The message was pretty clear: strong emotions – particularly the less rosy, darker variety – were not welcome.

Looking back across my own history, I clearly see moments of my childhood in which my approach, because it was whiny, loud and devoid of even a hint of subtlety or sophistication, was in need of more than a little guidance…

As happens with kids, a good deal of the stuff I was going on about didn’t have much substance to it and, because I didn’t yet have the language to get my ideas and needs across, I defaulted to what I perceived had worked in the past – when I was even less resourceful.

Years later, I realized that my mother, the “parent of convenience” – just because she happened to be there most of the time due to my father’s work schedule – wasn’t particularly well-equipped for the task of raising an emotionally sensitive and expressive kid – in no small part because she and I were similar…

Also, emotional literacy – to say nothing of emotional fluency or flexibility – were just not woven into either of my parents’ familial tapestries…

When it came down to it, neither Mom nor Dad were teed up to listen any better than I was developmentally able to speak.

I’m bringing all this up because on a much larger scale, the same kind of thing is happening on a cultural level.

We live with a legacy of generations worth of training in extraordinarily limiting views and understanding (and avoidance) of all but a sliver of the available emotional spectrum.

We’re taught that smiles and happiness are good, that anger and outrage are bad – and are usually conflated with violence and acting-out…

And the above are neither true nor terribly useful.

For one thing, people become angry for many reasons, including when boundaries are broken and values are compromised or disregarded…

People also get angry when they are not heard, aren’t being paid attention to and/or are being marginalized.

There are other possible ingredients, but with just these, have a look at some of your own experiences of anger.

To add to the mix, anger rises to the level of rage when it combines with invisibility and hopelessness.

I’d assert that pretty much everyone who’s made it to adulthood has, at one point or another, experienced their own anger and rage…

What each individual did with those emotions – whether they turned them against themselves, whether they transformed them to blame, shame or self-pity, whether they acted out in violent or destructive ways or, perhaps, found constructive expressions is a complex equation having a lot to do with each person’s experience, world-view, history and so much more…

The funny thing is that change often comes when angry and yes, outraged, people find their way to constructive pathways…

And constructive pathways born of strong emotion are seldom quiet or polite!

Substantive change, methinks, can’t be bothered with genteel airs.

You don’t have to read the fine print to see that we’re in the midst of a deluge of anger and outrage.

The question is, can we retrain ourselves to slow down enough to short-circuit and transform the legacy of “I can’t hear you when you use that tone of voice” or “come back and talk to me when you’re not so emotional” into the kind of curious presence that can stand in angry, raging fires?

The sort of presence that recognizes and accepts emotion without needing to deny, control or pretty it up…

The kind of presence that knows things are likely to be wildly uncomfortable in the short term, yet just as wildly productive, even generative in the long term…

The level of presence that understands staying with conflict can lead to connection, wisdom, healing and deep intimacy…

Most of us were taught that reason and logic are reliably superior to emotion…

While I’m not about to vote them off the island, I’ve learned far too much about the power of emotions – including my (now) good friends anger, fury and rage – to insist that only logic and reason get first dibs on the car keys or seats at the head of the table.

I’ve also learned that when adults deploy “I can’t hear you when you use that tone of voice” on other adults, it seldom (if ever) has much to do with the one actually using “that tone of voice” and much more to do with the discomfort, lack of control, assumptions, defaults and/or triggering of the one who claims they “can’t hear”.

Are they suddenly, actually, quite literally unable to hear?

Just to be clear, I’m not advocating for unconditionally raised voices or outsized verbal aggression when listening is already happening…

I am advocating – as ever – for listening, curiosity and the breaking of legacies and icons of unquestioned gentility that quickly become little more than gussied-up tone policing.

Because tone policing is tone policing, no matter how you care to dress it up…

And all that stuff about sticking around and listening even when things are getting sticky and uncomfortable?

That’s one of the cool things conscious adults get to do – walk awkwardly from confined spaces, over thresholds of change into the open air of responsibility, learning and growth.