“You don’t know what you’ve got, ’til it’s gone”

“Don’t it always seem to go, that you don’t know what you’ve got ‘til it’s gone?”

The words of Joni Mitchell, Big Yellow Taxi.

When I was in my 40s, I began to experience mild hearing loss. High pitched noises, alarms and some birdsong, were outside my range of hearing. Gradually, over time, this hearing loss led to associated tinnitus. My particular tinnitus is a permanent, white noise sound over which I attempt to conduct everyday life.

The deterioration in my hearing means I have had to wear hearing aids for the past few years. These give me some clarity and enable me to partake in conversation – as long as that conversation is:

• In the same room
• Not in a restaurant or pub

I want to destigmatise the wearing of hearing aids so that they become unremarkable – like wearing glasses. You’ll notice in the pictures below that I have ‘blinged up’ my hearing aids and that’s because I want people to know that I wear them. Most people don’t realise the blingy bits are attached to hearing aids so it makes for a great conversation around hearing loss awareness.

As a coach, hearing loss has actually been a benefit to me.

Coaching requires a degree of listening that goes beyond the ‘everyday’. My hearing loss means that I am hyper focused on my coaching partner (how I like to refer to my clients) and so I am able to sustain an effective level of active and often deep listening.

Listening, really listening to someone, is a skill that can be learned and fine-tuned and it’s one of the greatest gifts you can give to someone.

Tinnitus is, however, an invasive, unpleasant annoyance and something I am managing on a day-to-day basis. Paradoxically, it’s not perfect hearing I miss; it’s silence. Silence is something I really miss now that it’s gone.

Silence is hard to find in today’s anthrophonic world. Even if you manage to escape to the wilds of the countryside, silence is often interrupted by the sound of human activity – a light aircraft or the faint roar of a jet engine, for example.

Can you remember the last time you were able to experience absolute silence? I hope so and I hope that if you’re reading this, the next time you do, you stop and appreciate its wonder.

Because, you don’t know what you’ve got, ‘til it’s gone.