One question I’ve been asking my friends for fun lately is, “If you had the superpower to heal anyone of anything, would you charge money to use it?”
It’s a fun question because people respond differently based on where they’re coming from. Some answer with a quick “No” because they feel it’s unethical to charge for an ability that they were born with. Plus it’s really difficult to put a price on healing someone of a terminal illness.
Others want more information such as:
Does the superpower take a toll on you?
How long does it take to heal someone?
Is it something you can develop?
But what if I told you that we were all born with a super power? And what if all this super power needs to grow is to be practiced like a muscle?
Listening is a Super Power
After four years getting trained as Pastoral Counselor and two years as a therapist, I’ve come to the conclusion that listening is an incredible super power. It has given me supernatural abilities of insight and has allowed me to do some incredible things such as:
Bring clarity to overwhelming and chaotic situations.
“Read people’s minds” by looking past what people say and getting to what they mean.
Help heal people emotionally and make them feel less lonely.
In Korean, there is a word to describe this super power: Nunchi(눈치). Nunchi refers to the art, skill, and ability of listening and gauging another person’s mood. A highly developed sense of Nunchi requires high emotional intelligence and is crucial to thriving in high-context communication collectivistic cultures.
In order to turn the latent ability of listening into a super power, an active stance must be taken. This means actively identifying the subtext of what a person is saying. It involves incorporating a person’s cultural/personal/societal background. It involves allowing the other person to validate whether the insights that you are gleaning is accurate. It even considers a person’s body language.
Notice how this is different from passive listening where you simply take in what the person says with minimal response or reaction.
Once you obtain this super power, it can be applied to nearly all aspects of life. Listening can help you build closer relationships with your friends. It can help you better understand how to approach your boss at work depending on their current stress level. It can make you a better communicator and teacher as you are able to call out universal human truths. It can even help you diffuse arguments by identifying what the root of the problem is.
My Mom’s Nunchi
When I was around 5 or 6 years old, I went to go shoe shopping with my mom. It was a frustrating experience because I tried on several pairs but none of them seemed to fit. I even tried using those old school metal shoe measuring devices to find the exact size I should try. But for some reason, they all were really tight around the sides of my foot.
After trying the sixth pair I asked one of the shoe store helpers, “How come none of the shoes fit me?”
“Because you have wide feet,” she said.
“My son doesn’t have wide feet! He has normal feet!” my mom yelled in anger. She quickly grabbed my hand and stormed out of the store.
When we got back home, I ran up to my room and shut the door. I sat on my bed thinking about what happened because for some reason I was feeling sad. I thought maybe there was something wrong with me because I had wide feet. Eventually I came out of my room and went to go talk to my mom who was making dinner.
“Umma(엄마). Do I have wide feet?” I asked quietly while looking down at the floor.
My mom stopped preparing the salad, looked at me, and smiled at me. She had been patiently waiting because she knew that this question was coming.
“Andrew. Your feet are like tree trunks. The wider they are, the firmer you’ll stand,” she said.
“Okay,” I said with a huge smile on my face and ran back upstairs to play with my leggo’s.
When I think back to that memory, I realize now that my mom had incredible nunchi. As soon as that shoe helper said that I had wide feet, she saw the confused look on my face and knew right away how it would affect me. When she heard the tone of my voice in the kitchen and saw me looking down at the floor, her nunchi immediately told her that I was feeling sensitive and different.
My mom knew that I was feeling sad even before I did and it felt like a super power to me. Not only did it help her “read my mind,” but she was also able to encourage me to embrace my differences and not be ashamed of them because of it.
Next week, we’ll dive into some practical steps of how you can develop your own listening skills and turn them into a super power.
Discussion Questions
Have you ever had someone listen to you really well? When was it and what happened?
How did you feel after that experience?
What things did that person do?