As No One Else Can Know How

It Is Astonishing How Elements That Seem Insoluble Become Soluble When Someone Listens, How Confusions That Seem Irremediable Turn Into Relatively Clear Flowing Streams When One Is Heard.

Powerful Is Our Need To Be Known, Really Known By Ourselves And Others, Even If Only For A Moment.

I Hear The Words, The Thoughts, The Feeling Tones, The Personal Meaning, Even The Meaning That Is Below The Conscious Intent Of The Speaker. Sometimes Too, In A Message Which Superficially Is Not Very Important, I Hear A Deep Human Cry That Lies Buried And Unknown Far Below The Surface Of The Person. So I Have Learned To Ask Myself, Can I Hear The Sounds And Sense The Shape Of This Other Person's Inner World? Can I Resonate To What He Is Saying So Deeply That I Sense The Meanings He Is Afraid Of, Yet Would Like To Communicate, As Well As Those He Knows?

When A Person Realizes He Has Been Deeply Heard, His Eyes Moisten. I Think In Some Real Sense He Is Weeping For Joy. It Is As Though He Were Saying, "thank God, Somebody Heard Me. Someone Knows What It's Like To Be Me".

No Other Person's Ideas, And None Of My Own Ideas, Are As Authoritative As My Experience.