What Happens When Someone Finally Listens? | Steven Bouris

What can we know about another person’s life if we’ve never asked what their experience has actually been?

Steven Bouris grew up with a large facial birthmark. It meant people noticed him wherever he went, but being noticed and being understood proved to be very different experiences.

One event during Steven’s first year of high school remained with him for decades. In a photograph of 720 people, a black square had been placed over the birthmark on his face. Steven describes feeling singled out and carrying the experience without speaking about it for thirty years. ccb-steven-bouris

What’s Brewing?

We begin with lived experience and use one person’s story to open a larger human conversation about difference, belonging, compassion and the things we can too easily misunderstand about one another.

Steven and Andrea explore what it was like growing up with a visible difference, the ways Steven learnt to protect himself, and what happened decades later when a friend asked what his childhood had actually been like.

Their conversation moves into the difference between trying to fix somebody’s pain and creating enough space for them to speak, as well as Steven’s changing relationship with his birthmark and himself.

About Steven Bouris

Steven Bouris is the author of Different. In this conversation, he describes using his experience of living with a facial birthmark as the starting point for sharing tools that other people can apply to their own lives. ccb-steven-bouris

I am deliberately keeping this bio limited because that is all the final episode itself verifies. We can expand it later from his supplied official bio if you want.

Connect with Steven through his website and find out more about his book Different – stevenbouris.com.au.

Brew the Change

Think of someone whose story you know only from the outside. Invite them for a coffee. Then ask one question:

“What has that experience been like for you?”

When they answer, don’t fix, don’t compare, don’t reassure. Simply listen.

You never know what years of silence your curiosity might gently interrupt.

Watch the Conversation

Pour yourself a cuppa, grab your favourite chocolate and join the conversation.

Let Love Be the Loudest Voice.