Listen, don’t assume

Every day, I sit in silence and concentration, listening to people share the most intimate, dark parts of themselves with me. As a therapist, it’s of utmost importance to listen and not assume. To listen to the words someone is saying, their body language, the emotions and thoughts beneath it all. I use this inner listening to practice avoiding assumption and ignoring. Simply put, it’s the art of sharing a story, not reading a script.

In the same way I was numbed out, distracted and running from being aware of myself, I work with others doing the same thing. I draw on my experiences of losing a parent, changing my religious beliefs, facing my past in the silence, moving across the country, and reaching emotional and mental low points to actively listen and not assume. To help my clients hear their own lives and live out of that place.

My dad got diagnosed with stage 4 colon cancer when I was 10 years old, and passed away when I was 11 years old. I remember my mom being so mad at him because he had major signs of being sick but didn’t share them with her. By the time he did, it was too late. In short, he didn’t listen to the signs and assumed it was better to not share. The cancer had spread to the point of no return and the moment it killed my dad, was the moment I woke up. Like the morning’s first light hits our eyes, creating chaos and arousal, I knew it would get worse before it got better. 

Everything I had been taught about being a good person, following the rules and living in certainty flew out the window. I was met with tough realities that seemed contradictory and paradoxical: the meaning of suffering, why we're not protected from it and what it’s meant to teach us.  As I navigated these questions and tensions, I started to open up to observe more than I believed. A new reality had injected itself into my veins like the chemotherapy had to try and save my father. 

When I moved to the Atlanta suburbs the following year to be closer to my grandmothers, I remember struggling with how I would share with my new classmates about why I moved. Middle schoolers want to talk about pokemon and make awkward body noises, not have an Oprah session deep dive on me feeling abandoned from losing my dad. Trauma bonding wasn’t a thing then so I felt isolated, misunderstood and lonely. As these inner feelings grew, I doubled down to feel known and accepted on the outside. I stopped listening to my inner life because it was too painful to hear.

Growing up, I knew it all. I grew up believing that as a white, middle to upper class American male. On top of that, I was raised in an conservative Evangelical community where you do what the bible says and you don’t ask questions. There was only one, right way to live and if you don’t live like that, well, let’s just say you end up somewhere warm. This naturally led to me safeguarding my ego by staying in my tribe. 

Then, I went to college. This transition was a pseudo-rite passage for me. I met people from different parts of the state who believed all kinds of things. My mind was exposed to new ways of living, perspectives and I jumped right in. While I maintained some of what I grew up in, I had some life changing experiences that changed my outlook and values in life.

I started being curious, exploring new adventures and taking new risks. I hooked up with and dated girls who weren’t Christian, moved to new cities and got kicked out, drank for the first time, traveled abroad and to other states, dropped out of college, and found new music and podcasts. While all this wasn’t anything crazy standalone, each new found experience was a thumbprint in the malleable clay of my mind and heart. Shaping me into what was becoming but not yet. I started to listen to things I once ignored. Things I was scared of, didn’t think were possible and didn’t fit into my previous small box of how I saw life. 

I also began to get to know the deep wound that had defined my life up to that point in my father’s death. After college, I had a major faith crisis where the bending caused by my listening, broke me. I finally hit the taproot of my heart and chaos ensued. Everything I believed from religion to career to who I was got tossed and turned like a washing machine. I came out clean but wrinkled as hell. My heart started to be refined and purified in the person I was and who I wanted to become but I felt like I had no clarity or direction in my life, though, I felt more free and grounded.

This led me to live in a Catholic Benedictine Trappist monastery for 6 weeks where my life completely transformed. I remember the first week there I was struggling to settle in. No working, cooking, driving or being exposed to distractions. Just pure, unadulterated silence and stillness. My spiritual director said, “The Sufi Muslims have a saying that there’s three ways to encounter fire. Most see it, few feel it and almost no one is willing to be consumed by it.” I saw God’s divine love and union, manifested as silence as the fire. As I sat and slowly became consumed, I healed, received clarity and most of all, created a lifelong habit of self-awareness. 

The same silence that beckoned me to heal in the monastery led me to move to NYC from 2018- 2022. Ironic for the being called to the city that never sleeps (or stays quiet!). These were some of the most challenging, inspiring years of my life. I met my wife, started and changed careers, learned and was shaped by one of the most cultural cities in the world. That inner voice I had listened to and ignored throughout my life guided me to a dark yet enlightened place.

The Summer of 2020, I hit an all time low. I had been let go from my job due to the pandemic, and was stuck in a small New York City apartment, which could easily be classified as a trendy closet. My now- wife was working a ton and all my friends had moved out of the city. Those same feelings of loneliness, isolation and being misunderstood from middle school reared their heads again. I made a detrimental mistake in my relationship and I yet again, woke up to the reality of my life. I knew I needed a change but more so to be changed. 

This catapulted me to become Wes 2.0. I found and kept a steady, full time job, started seeing a therapist to face my past, got into grad school to study what would become my career, got engaged to the love of my life and started taking my health seriously. I started listening to those inner questions, wrestlings and realities. More so, I started living them, as the poet Rilke says. I don’t know much and won’t ever claim to. If anything, I’ve found freedom in not knowing but simply being present and appreciating what is. What is my life, myself, my environment and my world I live in. If I could share one call to action it would be to listen and not assume. 

Assuming is ignoring, escaping and delaying the truth. It’s skewing reality to fit your ego instead of making your ego be shaped by reality. It’s the difference between living a whole, healed and integrated life and a life of isolation, disconnect, and suffering. Listen, don’t assume. Remember the words of Epictetus: “We have two ears and one mouth so that we can listen twice as much as we speak.”