As a therapist, I sit with around 8 patients per day. So often, I find myself holding back a comment or question in order to allow the patient to speak and hear his or her own words. Sometimes, it allows me to wait long enough to hear what I need to hear. What I need to understand better. Time in my office, allows people a safe space to find important words and to know that they are heard.
Jan 29, 2023·edited Jan 29, 2023Liked by Pádraig Ó Tuama
Growing up with slower auditory processing in an environment where there was a demand for quick wit and the expectation to absorb verbal information on the spot left me often feeling unheard and isolated, little space for my own voice. I needed time to absorb things. It took me a long time to value this trait as more gift than hindrance, The slowed down process of writing and editing has not only been a coping mechanism, but long been a tremendous source of joy and self-advocacy for me. It is expression all my own and eventually helped me find more confidence when speaking. I continue to learn that relationships and sharing are all about editing and editing some more to distill essence and even a completed poem is still in process. Writing has been my patient friend and she's demanding but she works lovingly with me at my own pace.
I’m an adoptee, and since I was a child, the shadow of my birth mother has accompanied me. At twenty-one, I lost my adoptive mother, whom I loved very dearly. At twenty-two, I began writing a letter to my birth mother, unsure if I’d ever even have a chance to deliver it. I returned to it over the course of a few years. It went on for pages, roaming into digressions and sometimes reaching into the dark corners of a mind descending into a serious drinking problem.
At thirty-five I got sober. A few years later, I destroyed the hard drive that contained the letter; it was simply no longer my voice speaking in it.
At forty-four, I took a DNA test, and after six weeks of putting together the pieces of a family tree, I was able to put a name to the shadow that walked with me from my childhood. On my forty-fifth birthday, I decided to contact her, and found I had no idea what to say.
What came out was simply, I’m OK. I understand what you did. I’ve spent my life thinking of you. I hope you’re OK, too.
The space I allowed myself before pursuing this, before reaching out, allowed me to extend a hand in love, and in giving without needing anything in return. In the interim, a very loving relationship has developed between us, and we speak often.
It was a long time to wait, for both of us, but like most things in life, it happened in it’s own good time, and I don’t regret a single thing.
I waited to have a conversation with someone whose actions had hurt me, until I had distance enough from my old self to see my own contributions clearly. Until I was more interested in truth and repair then in being right. It was one of the tenderest conversations I’ve ever had: each of us extending grace and generosity back to the person we had fallen in love with then, who had hurt our old selves not out of malice but out of wounding and inexperience. Our older selves, now humbled enough by life and by an intimacy with our own limitations, apologized in earnest. We both felt the balm of our own wounds being acknowledged. But our energy was not on our own hurt — it was on tending the other with integrity and care. Now, I try to wait for and cultivate that feeling: that readiness for true repair, where the soul extends and the heart is soft and anything becomes possible.
I especially need time when something really hurts. It is as if time gives me a space to process it a little so words I put out don't hurt me more but then are a start of healing (hopefully understandable, english is not my native tongue)
As a quiet person known for listening, I often take my time in speaking. Sometimes I take so much time that I do not speak. Then the conversation with other live people moves on or ends, and I am left to the conversations in my head!
At times, this quiet is simply not adding to “small talk” or “chatting;” I smile and nod acknowledgment or empathy. At other times I am an appreciative audience for friends who are very good storytellers!
And so I write. I write carefully. But I am learning to write poems. I want to write more freely. I want to be able to not only write stories, but also tell stories in a way to connect and share meaning or laughter.
I recently went through a divorce. I waited for 31 1/2 years for my narcissistic husband to change. Growing up in a religious family, I was taught that you forgive, because that's what you do, plus the other person will change. So, I was patient. I raised our special needs child, I gave up my career, I took care of the house and all our family's needs. Do I regret those years of abuse and heartache? I can't. Because they made me who I am--stronger, clear-eyed, determined, empathetic. If anything, I have to forgive my younger self. I was surviving, and I didn't know that I didn't have to accept certain behaviors. I could be kind AND have boundaries. As Maya Angelou said, and I'm paraphrasing, "People tell you who they are; believe them the first time."
Hi Padraig. I am a new reader. I rarely comment on anything I read. I am beginning to wonder if that might be the difference between 'just consuming' and really engaging with the work. So I wanted you to know, this piece spoke to me. Especially your question, "Does the poem have room enough to look back at me and pose a question?" Brilliant. I will ask this now of my poems. Thank you.
I call this time "percolating." Thoughts abound as I am percolating but I know I am not ready yet. Then, often in the middle of the night, I awake and it is time to write or design a program or whatever needs to be done. I have gone from stressing over this time to gratitude for the bubbling up of ideas, the twisting and turning of my thoughts, the flutters of my stomach when it causes a little fear or hesitation in what I may be needing to do or say, and the solidity of knowing in every cell of my body that it is now time to get into action.
I have to be careful to not get attached to what I think has been the result of percolating and then getting feedback about it. A work in progress for sure!
I love this inquiry. 🙏🏾 Upon initial reflection, my mind immediately went to a time when a “fuck you” became a “thank you,” precisely because I took time before speaking. Quite a bit of time. (two years, seven months, and 3 days, and a few extra hours, just approximately). But upon taking some more time to reflect on this inquiry, I recap a time when taking time before speaking deepened a crack, in which rot grew, and spread, and led to a complete uprooting. I speak literally, not in metaphors. In December 2021 I noticed a crack in my bedroom ceiling. I didn’t say anything at that time, for reasons I can’t quite understand (predictable procrastination? too busy with inner fuck yous toward aforementioned recipient of a more recent “thank you”, and, or, not wanting to make a fuss over just a small crack, defaulting to a habitual “it’s not a big deal,” avoiding dealing with issues of “real adult life” like reporting even a small crack, preferring instead to read poetry, rather than “be the one complaining”)... who knows why, but i didn’t say anything to my apartment building management until July 2022. They then took an inordinate, inexcusable amount of *time* to take action, until January 9th 2023, to be precise, by which time the crack had grown, significantly, and the cause of that crack, a very slow low grade leak from the radiator in the apartment above, had degraded the wood within the ceiling and proliferated the growth of Aspergillus. Mold. One I happen to be allergic to. Having been uprooted from my home, now being asked to not just make a small complaint about a minor crack, but go to all out battle, conjuring my inner Kali-ma (White Tara, step aside)... I see how taking time to speak - out of some kind of avoidance / fear perhaps - led to a much deeper crack, and rot that requires extensive remediation. And while this feels like a mistake, I can also see, spoken from the safety of an alternative shelter, one that’s turned out to be so very lovely and have many gifts, how this radical uprooting is also perhaps what I needed, maybe, to make much needed changes in my habits, and in my life. I’m still at “fuck you” to my apartment building management, and I still think rightfully so. But to Aspergillus, not quite at thank you, but with time I can ask it a question - what have you come here for? What’s needed to be decomposed? Only time (and safety) could bring me to speak this question, even if just to myself.
It was the last visit with my dear friend Laura, who lay unresponsive in the ICU, the ventilator keeping death at bay for a little while longer. I had brought a sheaf of papers with prayers for the dying and the grieving. Taking her warm hand, looking at that body that was her and no longer her, I waited. No words came-- just the warmth of her hand, and the warmth of mine.
In my work as a chaplain, I am continually learning to wait and take time before saying something. My deeply embedded default is to use words to fix things quickly, but when I am silent and wait, words have an opportunity to emerge in others and in myself that are more thoughtful and resonant. It is a discipline or practice for me though...doesn’t come naturally yet.
My personality drives me to speak the sharp shard of truth that I see in a situation. It took me years to understand that others had equally important fragments to the whole. Now I strive to listen and weave.
I waited to say “I do” and should have waited longer because I didn’t.
My mother died
Just as the sun rose
From the river she loved
I said nothing
Just let the river flow
As it always had
Carrying the words unsaid.
As a therapist, I sit with around 8 patients per day. So often, I find myself holding back a comment or question in order to allow the patient to speak and hear his or her own words. Sometimes, it allows me to wait long enough to hear what I need to hear. What I need to understand better. Time in my office, allows people a safe space to find important words and to know that they are heard.
Growing up with slower auditory processing in an environment where there was a demand for quick wit and the expectation to absorb verbal information on the spot left me often feeling unheard and isolated, little space for my own voice. I needed time to absorb things. It took me a long time to value this trait as more gift than hindrance, The slowed down process of writing and editing has not only been a coping mechanism, but long been a tremendous source of joy and self-advocacy for me. It is expression all my own and eventually helped me find more confidence when speaking. I continue to learn that relationships and sharing are all about editing and editing some more to distill essence and even a completed poem is still in process. Writing has been my patient friend and she's demanding but she works lovingly with me at my own pace.
I’m an adoptee, and since I was a child, the shadow of my birth mother has accompanied me. At twenty-one, I lost my adoptive mother, whom I loved very dearly. At twenty-two, I began writing a letter to my birth mother, unsure if I’d ever even have a chance to deliver it. I returned to it over the course of a few years. It went on for pages, roaming into digressions and sometimes reaching into the dark corners of a mind descending into a serious drinking problem.
At thirty-five I got sober. A few years later, I destroyed the hard drive that contained the letter; it was simply no longer my voice speaking in it.
At forty-four, I took a DNA test, and after six weeks of putting together the pieces of a family tree, I was able to put a name to the shadow that walked with me from my childhood. On my forty-fifth birthday, I decided to contact her, and found I had no idea what to say.
What came out was simply, I’m OK. I understand what you did. I’ve spent my life thinking of you. I hope you’re OK, too.
The space I allowed myself before pursuing this, before reaching out, allowed me to extend a hand in love, and in giving without needing anything in return. In the interim, a very loving relationship has developed between us, and we speak often.
It was a long time to wait, for both of us, but like most things in life, it happened in it’s own good time, and I don’t regret a single thing.
I waited to have a conversation with someone whose actions had hurt me, until I had distance enough from my old self to see my own contributions clearly. Until I was more interested in truth and repair then in being right. It was one of the tenderest conversations I’ve ever had: each of us extending grace and generosity back to the person we had fallen in love with then, who had hurt our old selves not out of malice but out of wounding and inexperience. Our older selves, now humbled enough by life and by an intimacy with our own limitations, apologized in earnest. We both felt the balm of our own wounds being acknowledged. But our energy was not on our own hurt — it was on tending the other with integrity and care. Now, I try to wait for and cultivate that feeling: that readiness for true repair, where the soul extends and the heart is soft and anything becomes possible.
I especially need time when something really hurts. It is as if time gives me a space to process it a little so words I put out don't hurt me more but then are a start of healing (hopefully understandable, english is not my native tongue)
As a quiet person known for listening, I often take my time in speaking. Sometimes I take so much time that I do not speak. Then the conversation with other live people moves on or ends, and I am left to the conversations in my head!
At times, this quiet is simply not adding to “small talk” or “chatting;” I smile and nod acknowledgment or empathy. At other times I am an appreciative audience for friends who are very good storytellers!
And so I write. I write carefully. But I am learning to write poems. I want to write more freely. I want to be able to not only write stories, but also tell stories in a way to connect and share meaning or laughter.
I recently went through a divorce. I waited for 31 1/2 years for my narcissistic husband to change. Growing up in a religious family, I was taught that you forgive, because that's what you do, plus the other person will change. So, I was patient. I raised our special needs child, I gave up my career, I took care of the house and all our family's needs. Do I regret those years of abuse and heartache? I can't. Because they made me who I am--stronger, clear-eyed, determined, empathetic. If anything, I have to forgive my younger self. I was surviving, and I didn't know that I didn't have to accept certain behaviors. I could be kind AND have boundaries. As Maya Angelou said, and I'm paraphrasing, "People tell you who they are; believe them the first time."
I need to take some time before I comment. Smile. DWJ
Hi Padraig. I am a new reader. I rarely comment on anything I read. I am beginning to wonder if that might be the difference between 'just consuming' and really engaging with the work. So I wanted you to know, this piece spoke to me. Especially your question, "Does the poem have room enough to look back at me and pose a question?" Brilliant. I will ask this now of my poems. Thank you.
I call this time "percolating." Thoughts abound as I am percolating but I know I am not ready yet. Then, often in the middle of the night, I awake and it is time to write or design a program or whatever needs to be done. I have gone from stressing over this time to gratitude for the bubbling up of ideas, the twisting and turning of my thoughts, the flutters of my stomach when it causes a little fear or hesitation in what I may be needing to do or say, and the solidity of knowing in every cell of my body that it is now time to get into action.
I have to be careful to not get attached to what I think has been the result of percolating and then getting feedback about it. A work in progress for sure!
I love this inquiry. 🙏🏾 Upon initial reflection, my mind immediately went to a time when a “fuck you” became a “thank you,” precisely because I took time before speaking. Quite a bit of time. (two years, seven months, and 3 days, and a few extra hours, just approximately). But upon taking some more time to reflect on this inquiry, I recap a time when taking time before speaking deepened a crack, in which rot grew, and spread, and led to a complete uprooting. I speak literally, not in metaphors. In December 2021 I noticed a crack in my bedroom ceiling. I didn’t say anything at that time, for reasons I can’t quite understand (predictable procrastination? too busy with inner fuck yous toward aforementioned recipient of a more recent “thank you”, and, or, not wanting to make a fuss over just a small crack, defaulting to a habitual “it’s not a big deal,” avoiding dealing with issues of “real adult life” like reporting even a small crack, preferring instead to read poetry, rather than “be the one complaining”)... who knows why, but i didn’t say anything to my apartment building management until July 2022. They then took an inordinate, inexcusable amount of *time* to take action, until January 9th 2023, to be precise, by which time the crack had grown, significantly, and the cause of that crack, a very slow low grade leak from the radiator in the apartment above, had degraded the wood within the ceiling and proliferated the growth of Aspergillus. Mold. One I happen to be allergic to. Having been uprooted from my home, now being asked to not just make a small complaint about a minor crack, but go to all out battle, conjuring my inner Kali-ma (White Tara, step aside)... I see how taking time to speak - out of some kind of avoidance / fear perhaps - led to a much deeper crack, and rot that requires extensive remediation. And while this feels like a mistake, I can also see, spoken from the safety of an alternative shelter, one that’s turned out to be so very lovely and have many gifts, how this radical uprooting is also perhaps what I needed, maybe, to make much needed changes in my habits, and in my life. I’m still at “fuck you” to my apartment building management, and I still think rightfully so. But to Aspergillus, not quite at thank you, but with time I can ask it a question - what have you come here for? What’s needed to be decomposed? Only time (and safety) could bring me to speak this question, even if just to myself.
It was the last visit with my dear friend Laura, who lay unresponsive in the ICU, the ventilator keeping death at bay for a little while longer. I had brought a sheaf of papers with prayers for the dying and the grieving. Taking her warm hand, looking at that body that was her and no longer her, I waited. No words came-- just the warmth of her hand, and the warmth of mine.
In my work as a chaplain, I am continually learning to wait and take time before saying something. My deeply embedded default is to use words to fix things quickly, but when I am silent and wait, words have an opportunity to emerge in others and in myself that are more thoughtful and resonant. It is a discipline or practice for me though...doesn’t come naturally yet.
My personality drives me to speak the sharp shard of truth that I see in a situation. It took me years to understand that others had equally important fragments to the whole. Now I strive to listen and weave.