5 Listening to Ourselves
The world is giving you answers each day. Learn to listen.
Listening to ourselves. Easier said than done, isn’t it? What do I mean by this? Later, I’ll discuss the cost of listening, and the importance of making sure that we listen to our own responses, that we practice self-care, that we do not make what we hear into our own problems or trauma. Here, I am talking about trusting our instincts when we are listening, and learning to trust ourselves.
A key element of being a good listener, being a support to others, is having a good and solid relationship with yourself. You need to treat yourself like a good and reliable friend, otherwise how can you offer that same friendship to others? Essential to this is remembering always to be kind to yourself—if you’re not, then who will be? The point is that we can’t help others, understand others, if we don’t do this for ourselves. We all have those moments of self-doubt, self-blame, shame: “I shouldn’t have said that,” “I should have listened properly to what someone was trying to tell me,” “I sounded silly when I suggested that.” And in those moments, it’s important to do what you would with a friend—tell yourself to forget it, move on, you were doing your best. I think this last point is worthy of repeating: you can only do the best you can at any given point on any given day. Guilt and self-blame are only ever negative thoughts.
During my years working in the social work department at the hospital, I connected daily to patients, their families, their friends. They presented often during tragic and traumatic times in their lives, and as office manager, I was often the first person they saw. I am not trained as a social worker, but my boss called me “the occasional counselor.” I am in awe of the social work profession. I witnessed so many times the difference social workers can make in supporting a person through the worst times of their lives. The death of a much-loved partner, of a parent, a sibling, a dear friend. However, it was the loss of newborns, which sadly I saw many times, that I carry in my heart and in my head. And will do for the remainder of my days.
I write about this aspect of my life because there was barely a week of my twenty years’ work in the hospital that I was not involved in the death of a baby, be it through miscarriage, stillbirth, or neonatal death. I began this chapter reflecting on how we should listen to ourselves and protect ourselves from others’ grief. There were many times when I did not do this for myself and I am eternally grateful to the hospital staff who helped me manage my own feelings, particularly my boss, who took great care to remind me of my role in these families’ lives—to listen, empathize, and make a difference, no matter how small.
What I remember most about my time involved in the perinatal loss program was the little things that at the time seemed inconsequential but had a profound impact. As I have mentioned earlier, once a month, the hospital held a funeral/memorial service for the babies lost in the past four weeks. I assisted with the administration, in conjunction, with the chaplains, funeral directors and the cemetery. On most first Wednesdays of the month, I attended the service. Twelve times a year over twenty years adds up to a lot of first Wednesdays of the month!
Knowing what those of us involved had to manage on these Wednesdays at 10 a.m. never got easier. A new month. New families. Sometimes families we’d met before who were saying farewell to a second baby. Sometimes, I had already met the parents; sometimes I hadn’t. Often, I would meet them when they brought to the department clothing, tokens of love, mementos, photographs they wanted placed in the coffin with their baby. I would receive them, assuring the parents of the care we would take in placing these special objects with their baby, that their baby would be dressed in these precious garments. On many occasions I did this personally. Talking to the baby as I dressed him or her, I would tell them who the people in the photo were; that they were being given a drawing their three-year-old sister/brother had made for them; that this was a flower their mother had picked from her garden that morning; I would read them the letter their grandmother wrote, telling them who their family were, where they were from, and how they would be loved and remembered.
Out of all the mementos and gifts I placed in a coffin, one stands out for me and flooded back to me recently when my five-year-old grandson showed me his first marbles and asked me to play with him. A grieving mother and father stood in front of me and I listened as the mother handed me several items, explaining what they were and why she wanted them placed with her baby. The little jacket she had knitted was way too big for her prematurely born baby, but it was the first thing she had made for her expected firstborn and she wanted him to have it. Her partner stood beside her, his head down, pain at hearing his partner, between sobs, explain the significance of each item, etched on his face. He had one of his hands in his pocket and I could hear something clicking. As his wife dissolved into tears, he hugged her and then looking over her shoulder, he removed his hand from his pocket and looked at me: in his hand were two marbles.
“These are the first two marbles my father gave me. I had many as a boy, lost some, won others, but I never risked losing these. I wanted to teach my son how to play marbles. Would you please take one, choose one, your choice, and give it to my son? I’ll keep the other.” As I reached out to take one, he closed his fist and his eyes briefly before opening them and letting me take one of the marbles. I chose the blue one, leaving him with the yellow—I don’t know why.
Two years later, that father reappeared in my office, his yellow marble in one hand, cell phone in the other, the biggest smile on his face. He came to show me the photos of his newborn daughter, hours old. He had brought the marble into the hospital with him when his wife went into labor. He told me I had chosen the right marble—he felt the yellow one was more suited to his new baby girl.
How does this story connect to this chapter? The first time I met this father, and during my interaction with him, including taking the marble from his hand, I remained silent. There were no words I could say that would help this man. He had all he needed right then and there, with his partner in his arms. They walked away from me without a backward glance. As they should. I had listened to myself: there was nothing I could do or say right then that was going to make a scrap of difference to the pain this couple was living through. I did what they asked me to do: choose the marble. On the second occasion we met, I listened again, but this time I gave him a hug. It felt like the right thing to do. Again, there weren’t really words to express what he had told me. My instincts told me that physical contact was not only appropriate for him, but also for me—he had reached out and taken the trouble to come and tell me this wonderful piece of news and so I reached out in response. This type of physical contact between staff and a patient’s family member was not encouraged, or probably considered professional, but there are times when it seemed to be the right thing, the human thing to do. I’d like to think—no, I believe—in this instance it was right.
My postscript to this story—I gave my grandson the longest hug (thankfully, he loves grandma hugs), then tried to teach him the tricks I had learned playing marbles as a girl.
Following your instinct—your gut, as we sometimes say—when listening to others and knowing when and how to respond is not always easy. The right thing won’t always be obvious. There are times when you know your interaction with someone is going to be a “one-off”—a shop assistant, the person standing in front of you in a line to board a plane or enter a theater, places where a brief conversation is merited. You have something in common here, traveling somewhere, enjoying the same show, buying something the shop assistant is invested in selling you. A casual conversation should be just that, casual. The only thing I’d say here is to judge the moment and respond to the cues of others. Equally, while we must always be polite and gentle, and treat others as we’d hope to be treated, we don’t have to engage with everyone constantly—that way lies madness and a lot of time wasted.
Here is a story about a casual encounter that took on huge significance. I don’t go to the theater as much as I would like. However, the opportunity to see the delightfully funny Billy Connolly a few years ago was not to be missed. As I lined up with my husband to take our seats, the woman in front asked me if I had seen Billy before. I proudly told her I had seen him in concert in Christchurch several years earlier. She told me this was the first time she would see him live, that she and her husband had enjoyed his sense of humor for decades. I noted she didn’t seem to be with another person but said nothing. However, it didn’t stop her talking. She told me they had bought tickets for the two of them many months earlier, but her husband had died a few weeks ago. She thought about not coming on her own but decided her husband would want her to and she was honoring him by being there. On impulse, trusting my instinct, I asked if she would like to meet up after the concert for a drink and to share our reviews. We met and had a nightcap, talking over each other as we agreed Billy Connolly is the funniest man going. We did not talk about her recently deceased husband, nor did we talk about meeting again. And we didn’t. But every time Mr. Connolly graces my television screen, or I see his beautiful face in a magazine, I think about her. I like to think that my husband and I made just a tiny bit of difference that day and she certainly made that evening even more special for us.
Timing. Time and place, the little things we do not look for, the people we connect with accidentally, can often impact us more than a lifelong friendship or relationship. You don’t have to “put yourself out there,” just be in the time and place you are in and the universe has a way of coming to you. Or at least, be open, be patient, don’t be afraid—this is my approach to human interaction. And so often you will benefit hugely from these chance encounters. This doesn’t happen daily, weekly, or monthly. That is the beauty of living—you never know. All you can do is be intuitive about the people who pass through your life, use your gut instinct to engage or not engage. As I’ve said above—feel free not to engage! Listen to yourself, talk to yourself if you want—nothing wrong with that, I’m doing it while writing this. I have learned to make myself smile, not to be dependent on others, though I love it when others have that effect on me.
Those years working in a hospital could be tough. My times with Lale, hearing his stories and the research I carried out when we weren’t together, sometimes brought me down. Being a writer, becoming a public figure, has been an overwhelming joy but it also comes with its own pressures, and being a public figure can mean people feel able to criticize. They are entitled to their opinions, but my response to this is a human one. My husband always knew when I asked him to find the DVD of the movie Airplane that I needed a good long laugh. It is my go-to. If it’s a good cry, then the Bette Midler movie Beaches does the job. To become emotionally overwhelmed, really get lost in something, it’s Out of Africa, as much for the beautiful music as the story line of love, hope, and courage. I use movies to nourish the emotion I need to feel—I suppose you could call it a form of catharsis. I know what I’m feeling but somehow channeling it through the prism of one of these much-loved, often-watched films allows me to experience those emotions in a “safe” environment and distance myself from whatever has left me feeling distressed.
When I was adapting The Tattooist of Auschwitz into a novel from my own screenplay, locked away in my sister-in-law and brother’s cabin on Big Bear Mountain in California in the middle of winter, I used music to put my head and heart into the space I needed. When I sat down for the first time each day to write, I spent the first nine minutes listening to Henryk Górecki’s Symphony no. 3, op. 36 “Symphony of Sorrowful Songs,” recorded by Kasprzyk and the Szymanowski State Philharmonic Orchestra, with vocals by Zofia Kilanowicz. Listening to this beautiful, haunting music, I also listened to the sound of my own heart beating—I was connecting my body and my mind. The faces of my family played on rewind in my head, my love for them so intense I felt it physically. I remembered Lale Sokolov, this man I was honoring, who sadly had not lived long enough to see his story in print. As the music ended and I opened my eyes, inevitably I would wipe away tears. And then I would write. For hours. When it was time to “save” and “shut down” for the day, it was again music that now ended my day. The passion with which Andra Day sings her powerful song “Rise Up” would lift me from my chair, put a huge smile on my face as I fist-pumped and told Lale we were on our way to sharing his story with the world.
I rejoiced in my decision to say yes to meeting a man whose wife had just died and who wanted to tell his story to someone. It was the busiest time of the year, three weeks before Christmas, but I listened to my gut saying, GO, what have you got to lose? I am grateful that on the whole, every time my instinct has told me to do something, take a risk, it has been the right decision.
Occasionally we can get it wrong, and sometimes I have to force myself to ignore that nagging little inner voice saying, give it a go. But I have learned to trust my instincts. When I fled my birth family and the claustrophobic belt that tied me to a small town, I didn’t just flee to the next town or city, but to a different country, arriving in Australia on my own, aged nineteen. I have no regrets for what was an impulsive decision—my husband, three children, and five grandchildren are testament to this being the best impulse I ever acted on.
I suppose I have at times in my life been guilty of thinking that moving away, or more correctly, running away, from personal problems that I don’t want to face is the best answer. It is an answer, but it’s not really the best one. Thankfully, I had the love and support of my family to guide me, to help me refocus on who I was, on who we could be as a family. They also helped me understand what I wanted to run away from.
When my oldest brother died in mid-2018 in New Zealand, I returned and reconnected with friends there, finding a spiritual connection to my homeland that I feel nowhere else in the world. On my return to Australia, I thought I wanted to move back to the country of my birth, to wrap myself in the uniqueness of the people and the land. Of course, it was grief pulling me back there. My family in Australia listened to me, understood my desire to “go home,” then reminded me that if I moved away, I would be leaving my children and grandchildren—I would be leaving the living to be with the dead. It was enough that they would have supported me, had I been successful in persuading my husband to uproot. They reminded me of the connection that binds me to my family and friends and to all that lies ahead.
I love the word “connection”—research professor of social work Dr. Brené Brown says we can’t have connection without allowing ourselves to be vulnerable with others, letting others “see” who we are, and taking the risk that they might not like what they see. We can have a connection with another person at the smallest level, exchanging a glance with someone choosing the same brand of cereal after considering the many displayed before us. Then there are the major connections that bring two people together through a shared interest that reveals many other shared interests—a link back to a third party and with time and conversation, a string of connections form as you share stories.
Not long ago, I was traveling on the subway in New York on a cold, wet, wintry day, there to launch my novel Cilka’s Journey. Along with others, I needed to get from Lower Manhattan to Upper Manhattan. Ordinarily, we would have taken a cab but the locals I was traveling with, new to my life, assured me we would reach our destination far quicker taking the subway.
On a crowded, peak-hour train one of my companions shared with me her pride in her teenage son, who has a specific learning disability. I do not know why she chose this public place to confide in me, or why she shared information about her son, but she did, and I was humbled to hear it. Someone very close to me back in Australia, with whom this person has a working relationship, also had a son a few years older, with the same disability. Both of these people are still in my life and now they are connected independently of me. I’m so glad that I could make this connection between two people I value so highly. I know they correspond on matters other than their professional connection. What transpires between them rightly stays that way. As important as it is to put yourself into someone else’s life, knowing when not to, or to withdraw, is equally important.
Since The Tattooist of Auschwitz was released, in January 2018, I have received thousands of emails from many countries. Most of them are short, simply expressing thanks and gratitude for telling this story. However, many of them go on to tell me about a tragic or traumatic event in their life, often quite recent, where hope for a future was taken from them. In reading Lale and Gita’s story, they have found hope. Reading of their love, courage, and survival in one of the darkest times in recent history, they tell me, has enabled them to take the first steps to finding their lost dreams for themselves and loved ones. Then there are the many emails from readers who have their own amazing story and ask for advice and assistance in finding a way to tell it. I also hear from readers who have connected with me personally at a talk I have given, or watched me in an interview on television, or listened to me on the radio. I feel so humbled that so many people have been touched by the stories I have told and want to reach out to me.
However, the email I received in South Africa, which led me to visit Israel twice in six months, stands out to me over and above all the others I have received. Because of it, I have told another amazing story of courage, survival, and hope. This time I wrote of the love of three sisters. What I heard in the voice of a ninety-two-year-old woman drew me to her, to her country, to her story. Sometimes it doesn’t take much—gut and instincts honed from decades of being open to listening tell you what to do. Making yourself vulnerable in meeting strangers, knowing you will need to be honest and open about yourself before they can be open with you, will bring rewards.
On other occasions, I have replied to correspondence and visited those writing to me because it was the right thing to do. It is about acknowledging the effort made by those who write in the first instance and validating their vulnerability in sharing their feelings on reading about Lale, Gita, and Cilka.
On that same trip to New York, I arranged to visit a drug rehabilitation center in New Jersey after I received a letter from a counselor there. She told me that several of the young people at the center, who were recovering and rehabilitating from drug abuse, had been affected by Lale Sokolov’s story, finding inspiration and hope in his survival.
For over two hours I sat and talked to around fifty young men and women, telling them untold stories of Lale and Gita, and hearing their own stories of survival. As tragic as their pasts had been, I was so inspired by their determination to deal with their drug problems and to find paths forward to give them the lives they now dared to dream of. Studying, working, striving to build meaningful relationships and give back to their communities were goals I hope they will achieve. I was told how many of them would not be able to return to their families who lived nearby because a family member was still “using.” They accepted this was the way it had to be if they were going to live, like Lale and Gita, the best life they could. The professionals who worked, taught, and supported these individuals and their choices were a further inspiration to me. They were devoted to their center and worked tirelessly with little funding to encourage and support the bravery of these young people who were standing up for themselves. I thank them most sincerely for contacting me and welcoming me to their center. On my return to Australia I received a lovely folder of letters from each person I met that day, expressing what our time together had meant to them.
I want them to know how much meeting them meant to me. I proudly tell of my time with them, I think of them often, I feel blessed to have been invited into their circle. I listened to them, they listened to me, I listened to my inner voice telling me this would be an experience I would treasure—so I did it.
Here is a story my brother Ian told me, about learning to listen to himself: