Learning to Listen

I’ve always prided myself on being a problem solver. It felt like a superpower—until I realized it sometimes silenced the people I loved most.

Give me a challenge—emotional, logistical, existential—and I’d start sorting, scanning for the root cause, lining up potential solutions like dominoes. It’s how I’ve shown love for most of my life: by being useful. By doing.

But over time, I began to notice that my best intentions didn’t always land the way I’d hoped. I’d offer advice, and the room would go quiet. I’d make a plan, and the other person would nod—but their shoulders stayed tense. What felt like help to me sometimes felt like interruption to them. They didn’t need me to fix it. They needed me to stay.

That urge to fix things didn’t begin in adulthood—it was already woven into how I made sense of the world as a kid. Fixing came naturally—long before my career reinforced it. I grew up trying to be useful—believing that being helpful might fill the quiet spaces where connection should have lived. My mother, though loving in her own way, wasn’t always emotionally available—and I learned early on to read the room, to anticipate rather than express. I think part of me believed that if I could be good, attentive, or needed, I might finally receive the closeness I craved.

My career only reinforced that instinct. I was rewarded for diagnosing issues quickly, offering solutions efficiently, and moving on to the next problem. That’s how much of business works—and I was good at it. If someone I loved was in pain, I wanted to do something—anything—to help. Listening without solving felt like standing still, and I wasn’t sure stillness counted as care.

And truthfully, I used to be uncomfortable if I didn’t have the solution. There was a kind of low-level anxiety in not knowing what to offer. So I’d reach for something—anything—that might make it better. I mistook my own discomfort for theirs, and I tried to ease it the only way I knew how: by doing. It took me a long time to be comfortable with discomfort, and to focus instead on simply holding space.

Then I started noticing the shift. I’d offer an idea—a way forward—and something would change. Not rejection, but a pulling back. A quietness. A sense I’d missed the mark, or skipped something essential.

It wasn’t that my suggestions were wrong. It was that the moment didn’t call for them. What it needed was something I hadn’t been taught to offer: stillness. Witness. The willingness to sit with someone in their mess without trying to clean it up.

I realized that staying—really staying—was harder than solving. Sitting across from someone in tears, resisting the urge to fill the silence, keeping my hands still when every instinct said to reach for a solution—that was the real challenge.

So I began to practice the pause.
When someone opened up to me—about pain, confusion, uncertainty—I learned to breathe before responding. I asked myself: Is this something to fix? Or something sacred to witness?

Sometimes that meant saying nothing. Other times, it was simple: That’s a lot. I’m here. Or You don’t have to go through this alone. I started trusting silence more, letting it stretch past that first beat of discomfort. Listening, not just to the words, but to the space between them.

It felt unfamiliar at first—like speaking a language I hadn’t practiced enough. Only when I cut back on work and leaned more into life—into being rather than producing—did I begin to unlearn some of those habits. I started to recognize that not everything broken needs fixing, and not every moment of pain calls for a plan.

But something shifted. People leaned in, instead of pulling away. The conversations deepened. And I started to understand that presence isn’t the absence of action. It is a more intentional kind of care—quiet, but deliberate.

That shift rewired how I show up. I used to believe my worth was tied to what I could fix, build, or carry. Now, I’m learning that holding space—without rushing in to fill it—is its own kind of offering. It’s changed how I show up everywhere: at home, at work, with friends. And it keeps changing me.

These days, I still want to help. But help looks different now. Less about answers, more about attention. Less about direction, more about witness. Listening has become one of the most honest ways I know to say, I care.

And for someone who once measured love in thoughtful plans and well-timed reassurances, that shift feels like a quiet kind of growing up.

I still have my moments—I lean into fixing when all that’s needed is my quiet presence. But I’m learning. And I’m especially grateful to the Great Dames—wise women and friends—who’ve shown me that vulnerability is a true superpower. As a long-time Board member and ally, I’ve been immersed in deeper, broader perspectives—spaces where traditional gender expectations tend to dissolve. When I’m with the Great Dames, I’m not stepping into a role—I’m simply showing up as myself. Present. Attuned. Enough. Invited to listen, reflect, and grow. It’s more.

I still solve problems—but I no longer lead with them. I no longer believe that everything painful is a problem to be solved.
Some things just want to be heard. And I’m learning to listen.