The recipe for love never changes; it's listening

​In the earliest seconds of our life, the first indication we get that we are loved is someone hears our voice. Anyone who has had a baby or has been around a baby knows that when they start crying, they will keep crying - until someone shows up.

Because they come into the world needing to be heard?

Because they come into the world needing to feel loved?

And is there any difference between being heard and being loved?

Babies grow older. They become adults. Love can start to take on different meanings; it can look different than being heard.

It can look like material gifts. It can look like sex. It can look like provided for and taken care of. It can look like peace and contentment. But if a relationship has much that looks and sounds like love, but voices aren't being heard, is their love?

Do we long to hear a baby's first cry out of the womb, but then somewhere along the way grow weary of hearing voices? Does love become something more complicated than crying out and listening?

There is a growing body of research that speaks to the negative health consequences of loneliness. I wonder if at the heart of that are the broken-hearted who no longer feel heard.

Or loved.

What happens to a baby when we answer their cry? They feel soothed and safe and seen and secure. That is what happens on the other side of a baby feeling heard.

Does anything different happen on the other side of a child or a teen or and adult feeling heard? And does anything else in life other than being heard make us truly feel soothed and safe and seen and secure?

Does anything else in life make us feel more loved than being heard makes us feel?

It's catching up to us in so many ways: unprecedented levels of isolation and addictions and suicides. So many complex problems - many of them rooted - I believe - in one common neglect - our ears; our attention.

We do consider it neglect if a caregiver doesn't show up for a baby's cry. We don't often see it that way if we don't show up for each other's cries.

Because we think a baby outgrows the need to be heard?

And is it possible that implies they outgrow the need to feel loved?

Maybe that all sounds sad and depressing, but to me there's a lot of hope in my words. If we'll pay attention.

To each other.

Burt Bacharach wrote these lyrics nearly 60 years ago:

What the world needs now is love sweet love
It's the only thing that there's just too little of
What the world needs now is love sweet love
No not just for some but for everyone

I do believe more of us than not are interested in solving the "too little love" problem. Only, I think we complicate it.

We need to look to the babies. Ask the question - what makes them feel loved?

I don't think that answer ever changes.

Nothing ever makes us feel more loved than being heard. And so maybe what the world needs now is more listening sweet listening.

It's the only thing that there's just too little of.

Do loving things for one another, but don't skip the most loving thing of all.

Don't skip making sure people feel heard.