For years, I though listening was love. I became really good at it.
I could read a room, noticed what wasn’t being said, sensed hurt before it had words. People felt safe with me. (Maybe you’ve been that person.)
Then one afternoon I was driving home from lunch with a friend. We’d talked for more than an hour. And I knew what she was wrestling with in her life. She knew very little about mine.
I remember being in the car, one question circling my thoughts: How did we spend all that time together, again… and somehow never get to me?
At first, I blamed her. Then wondered why is it I’m feeling resentment again? This time, I stayed with it long enough for it to tell me something.
Turns out I wasn’t waiting for someone to ask about me. I was waiting for someone to want to.
That’s a different ache.
Without ever deciding it consciously, I’d believed that if I was worth knowing… people would naturally want to know me.
And if I had to say, “I’d love to tell you what’s been happening for me,” hadn’t I already lost?
I wonder how often we do that – waiting for another person’s curiosity to answer a question we’ve never spoken out loud.
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t regret becoming such a careful listener. That little girl who learned to read a room grew into a woman who could read a heart. It’s become my life’s work. I wouldn’t trade that gift.
Every gift casts a shadow.
Mine was becoming deeply practiced at knowing other people while remaining largely unknowable myself.
ople to meet us where we are.
Niceness was asking me to manage someone else for my comfort.
Kindness was asking me to tell the truth in service of something larger.
At times that truth is gentle. At others it’s uncomfortable. And sometimes it sounds like, “I’d love to tell you what’s been happening for me.”
For years, I called that kindness. I don’t anymore. I actually now think it was fear wearing beautiful manners.
No one ever taught me that love asks two things of us:
Meet another where they are AND invite them to meet us where we are.
Since seeing this in myself, I can’t stop seeing it.
- In marriages.
- In people who are dating.
- in families
- In leadership teams.
Different relationships. The same quiet hope: If you really know me… you shouldn’t need me to tell you….
But relationships aren’t built on mind reading. They’re built on mutual revelation.
In my book Unbreakable Us: Removing the Barriers to Love, I call this the Sacred Third.
Not you. Not me. The relationship itself. The living space between us.
Instead of asking, “Who’s right?” I’m much more interested in another question: What helps love flourish?
Sometimes the answer is tenderness. Sometimes it’s directness. More often it’s the courage to bring them together.
These days, if something matters, I try to say so – imperfectly and honestly – “I’d love to tell you what’s been happening for me.”
Such an ordinary sentence able to change something extraordinary. This doesn’t mean everyone suddenly became more curious. I just stopped waiting for curiosity to prove I was worth knowing
Maybe becoming known isn’t something another person gives us. Rather something we practice.
- One honest conversation at a time.
- One relationship at a time.
So this month I’ve been carrying this one question.
Where am I still waiting to be discovered… instead of allowing myself to be known?
How would you answer it?
Ready to Explore What Is Possible?
If this reflection brought something into focus for you—perhaps a familiar reaction, a recurring relationship pattern, or a place where you long to show up differently—I invite you to schedule a one-to-one Discovery Call with me.
This is a space for us to look beneath what is happening on the surface and explore what may be shaping your experience of connection, conflict, trust, and love. Together, we will identify what may be asking for your attention and consider what a more grounded, resilient path forward could look like.
You do not need to have it all figured out before we speak. You only need to be willing to become curious about what is possible.