Holy Noticing: Learning to Listen to the Elephant in the Room
Before we name the hard thing between us, we may need to notice what is happening inside us.
The elephant in the room is not always across the table.
Sometimes it is in my chest, rearranging the furniture.
It presses against my ribs. It tightens my jaw. It makes me want to defend, hide, explain, fix, prove, or disappear before I even know what is happening.
That is the moment I need holy noticing.
I grew up with devotions: Scripture, a short reflection, prayer, and journaling. They taught me to pay attention to God and the things of God. What is Scripture saying to me today? What is God stirring in my life? What is happening in my soul?
I was quite the journaler, although to be honest, I wrote a whole lot about basketball and my grades. Apparently, my teenage self was mostly concerned with free throws and report cards.
Still, that was holy noticing.
And I am still grateful for it.
But holy noticing includes more than what I can think, read, or write down. It includes my body. It includes how I feel inhabited in my flesh, how I defend myself, and how I connect with my deeper and wiser self.
The body is not an obstacle to prayer. It is often the first place prayer tells the truth.
Holy noticing is paying attention to the way my chest tightens when a loved one says something that triggers self-doubt. It is noticing when my jaw clenches because I didn’t accomplish as much as I hoped to today. It is that buzzing between my shoulder blades when I awaken to the anniversary of a death. Sometimes sadness arrives before I know what to call it.
Much of my early Christian life was spent trying to think my way into faithfulness, which makes sense for a future professor. Feelings and bodily sensations were as different to me as a foreign language. I am grateful for a well-formed mind. I have also needed a more tender relationship with my own body and emotions.
There is more to holy noticing than thinking.
Jonathan Haidt uses the image of a rider on an elephant to describe the relationship between our reasoning mind and our larger emotional, intuitive, reactive self. The rider can reflect, plan, and make meaning. The elephant carries the energy of emotion, instinct, memory, fear, longing, shame, and protection.
For me, this image helps explain what happens in my nervous system under pressure. Before I have carefully chosen words, my body may already be preparing to fight, flee, freeze, appease, or shut down. My chest tightens. My jaw clenches. My mind starts building its case.
The rider can make good plans, but the elephant carries enormous energy.
Much of our life together is a lot of elephants bumping into each other and then issuing theological statements about why their elephant was right.
We usually talk about “the elephant in the room” as the thing everyone knows is there but nobody wants to name.
The tension in the family gathering.
The grief not mentioned.
The conflict underneath the nice email.
The shame hiding behind the joke.
But sometimes the elephant in the room is also inside me.
The emotional, reactive, protective part of me takes up space before I even know how to speak with wisdom. It fills the room of my body. It presses against my chest. It tightens my jaw. It makes me want to defend, hide, explain, fix, prove, or disappear.
My elephant is not bad. Neither is yours.
They are trying to help us survive.
But they need to be noticed.
When I ignore my elephant, it gets louder. When I shame the elephant, it gets afraid. When someone else comes at me with their loud elephant, I am likely to fight or freeze.
The elephant has its place. It carries important information. It tells us something about fear, hurt, longing, exhaustion, memory, and protection.
What I am learning to trust is the deeper self that can pause, notice, listen, and guide the elephant with compassion.
This is where, for me, spiritual direction and conflict transformation begin to share the same room. Both ask me to slow down before I act, and to consider what is happening beneath the surface. Both assume that truth without love can wound, and love without truth can avoid.
Dealing with the elephant in the room is not only about finding the courage to say the hard thing. Sometimes it is about becoming the kind of person who can say the hard thing without trampling the room.
Before I name what is happening between us, I need to notice what is happening inside me.
Am I speaking from love, fear, shame, resentment, or a need to prove something?
Am I trying to repair the relationship, or am I trying to win?
The elephant in the room may need to be named.
But so does the elephant in me.
Most of us do not enter hard conversations as blank slates. We bring our histories. We bring our families. We bring old wounds, old patterns, old vows we made without knowing we were making them.
I will never be ignored again.
I will never let anyone see me cry.
I will never need too much.
I will never be the difficult one.
And then someone interrupts us in a meeting, sends the terse email, or forgets to ask how we are doing, and suddenly the elephant is awake.
The room gets crowded fast.
The room where I first have to practice this is the room of my own body. My inner voice can be cruel about the size of my pants, the money I did not earn last month, the work I did not finish. It can turn an ordinary Tuesday into a courtroom.
If I cannot meet the judgment in me with mercy, I will have a hard time meeting another person’s judgment without defensiveness.
When I slow down and notice, I can hear a more compassionate, merciful voice. For me, it is the closest I get to the voice of God.
It notices:
You are stressed.
Your body needs rest.
Your grief needs tending.
And I can respond to a loving voice much better than a moral judgment.
That is why I am practicing holy noticing.
Inside myself.
Between myself and another.
In the room where something true is asking to be named.
Practice: Holy Noticing
Learning to Listen to the Elephant in the Room
This practice is for the moment before a hard conversation, or after one has already gone sideways. It helps us notice what is happening inside us so we can speak with more mercy, truth, and steadiness.
You may want a journal nearby.
Pause
Sit quietly if you can.
Place your feet on the floor.
Take one slow breath.
Pray:
God, help me notice what is true with your compassionate heart working in me.
Notice
Ask:
What is happening in my body?
Notice what is there.
Tight chest.
Clenched jaw.
Heavy shoulders.
Upset stomach.
Buzzing under the skin.
Tiredness.
Numbness.
Restlessness.
Try to describe it simply.
There is tightness in my chest.
My body feels heavy today.
Before naming the elephant in the room, notice the elephant in you.
Name
Ask:
What emotion might be here?
Anxious.
Sad.
Ashamed.
Angry.
Lonely.
Scared.
Overwhelmed.
Disappointed.
Tired.
Protective.
Then speak kindly to what you notice.
Hello, Anxiety. I see you.
Hello, Shame. You are loud today.
Hello, Anger. I wonder what you are protecting.
This may feel awkward.
Of course it does.
Most of us were not taught to speak kindly to the parts of us that feel inconvenient or uncomfortable.
Separate
Ask:
What actually happened?
What did I see or hear?
What story am I telling about it?
For example:
What happened:
She interrupted me three times in the meeting.
The story I am telling:
My voice does not matter here.
This small separation can create enough space for wisdom.
The story may be important. It may be pointing to something real. But the story is not the same thing as what happened.
When I lead with judgment, the other person usually defends.
When I lead with observation, there may be more room for conversation.
Listen
Ask:
What matters to me here?
Is this about respect?
Belonging?
Honesty?
Safety?
Trust?
Dignity?
Grief?
Repair?
Under the reaction, there is often something precious.
A longing.
A need.
A value.
A hope for the relationship.
This is where the elephant can teach us something. The loud feeling may be guarding something tender.
Choose
Ask:
What does love invite me to do next?
Maybe the next step is to take a walk, drink water, write before speaking, wait until tomorrow, ask for a conversation, name the concern gently, set a clearer boundary, or use a softer word with yourself.
When you are ready, you might say:
I want to name something I’m noticing because I care about our relationship.
Or:
When ___ happened, I noticed ___ in me. The story I started telling was ___. What I care about is ___.
For example:
When I shared the idea and the conversation moved on quickly, I noticed my chest tighten. The story I started telling was that my voice did not matter here. I care about trust and participation in this group.
That sentence will not magically fix everything.
Of course not.
People are people. Systems are systems. Families are families. Churches are churches. Emails should sometimes be illegal after 9 p.m.
But it gives us a different place to begin.
Less accusation.
More truth.
Less trampling.
More room.
Closing
Place a hand on your heart, stomach, or shoulder.
Say quietly:
I am here.
God is here.
This can be held.
Holy noticing helps us listen to the elephant in us before we address the elephant in the room.
That may be one of the ways love grows in us.
And maybe, with enough mercy and courage, one of the ways love grows between us.
Note:
Much of my work as a spiritual director lives in the tender space where prayer, conflict, grief, and the body are all telling the truth at once.
If you are looking for spiritual direction that makes room for hard conversations, conflict transformation, and embodied listening for God, you are welcome to reach out.