Transforming “Did I hear you?” to “Did my way of being with you help something meaningful happen?”
Imagine you are sharing something that is important to you with your partner, your boss, a colleague or a friend.
Take a moment to bring that to your mind’s eye.
…
Can you tell when they are listening?
Can you tell when they are not?
Might they be hearing your words yet not listening?
Have you been on the other side? Believing that you were listening but feeling somewhat disconnected or rushed to respond or away in your own thoughts?
Drawing from your own experiences, I am sure you’d agree with me about what listening is not.
Listening is not merely hearing to collect information. It is not politely keeping silent to wait your turn in the conversation. It isn’t only comprehension. Listening is not passive.
It is far more active and relational.
A lot of us live in cultures that are obsessed with speaking, explaining, persuading and performing and in them, listening is framed as a “soft skill” when in reality, it shapes learning, trust, conflicts, intimacy, diplomacy and change.
When we feel deeply listened to, we experience more psychological safety which in turn increases our ability to open up, self reflect and build trust with another human being.
In close relationships, listening signals to us “you matter and I am willing to stay present with you.”
At the work place, research suggests that employees who feel listened to by their manager show much higher engagement because a leader who listens well is not just extracting information from others, but creating conditions for better thinking between people and collaboration.
So What is Listening, Really?
I recently came across a proposed definition that truly resonated with me:
“we propose a novel, adjective-free listening definition: the degree of devotion to co-exploring the Other with and for the other.”
– A. Kugler and M. Mizrahi
The “degree of devotion” seems, to me, deeply related to attention which as I shared in my previous post in this series, is interlaced with emotional regulation and relational presence.
“Co- exploration” speaks to co-created dialogue, responsiveness and meaning-making. All pointing us to the fact that listening is really a relational practice that can support the person being listened to feel safer and more engaged; creating the conditions for deeper connection, reflection and discovery. It requires attention, yes, and also responsiveness to and for the other.
Training your Listening
Yet listening to another can be very difficult, specially when disagreement arises. Sadly, we see expressions of this experience in our personal lives and in our current geopolitical reality.
So, what can you do? I want to propose to you a couple playful practices to keep expanding your capacity for listening.
1. Arriving Consciously
You can play with this before important conversations.
⏳ Take a couple of minutes before you meet the other person, to notice how you are: scan your body, what do you notice? Where in your body do you notice tension?
🗣️What is the story that you are telling yourself before entering the conversation? What expectations are you already holding about the other person?
💃🏽Shake your body a little. Relax the belly. Bring your shoulders down. Unclench the jaw. Feel your feet on the ground. Take a couple of deeper breaths.
🧭 Set an intention for yourself. Something along the lines of: “I will really allow myself to take in the other person. I will pay attention to theirs words, their tone, their embodiment. I am genuinely interested in them.”
This is all about creating awareness and directing your attention.
Most listening failures are happening before the conversation even starts, because we go into it rushed, defended or already rehearsing our replies in our mind. This simple centering practice allows you to come to the conversation intentionally grounded in relational presence.
Working as coach, I find I always return to centering mindful practices that allow me to bring true presence and openness but it is in the difficult conversations with people I care about most, when I find these type of practices essential and yet easy to forget.
2. Not about Agreeing. All about Listening.
You will need someone to play this with.
👍🏽 Together, choose a low stakes topic to start with. One that is real, where there is some level of disagreement, but that is not too triggering.
🙋🏽♂️Each person will take turns speaking for a minute or 2 max.
👂🏽The listener can only 1) Verbalize what they heard using words like “I hear you saying that…” 2) Reflect back the feeling or emotion you sensed E.g. “It sounds very frustrating” 3) ask only ONE clarifying question.
👄The speaker’s job is to answer for themselves “Do I feel met and understood yet?”
If you don’t, let the other person know what they missed and have another round. If you do, let the listener know.
Only then can the 👂🏽listener express their own view, stepping into the 👄speaker role.
This is all about the relational act of listening. The things that people seem to skip with most ease are: staying receptive rather than jumping to fix or respond, and using verbal expressions of empathic reflection and comprehension.
As you practice, notice what happens for you in each role.
When you are finished you may share with your partner what that experience was like for you. What are you learning about the quality of listening in this conversation?
I hope you have fun playing and learning!
This matters far beyond our private conversations, don’t you agree?
In today’s world, we are participating or witnessing the horror unleashed when listening to people’s whose perspectives are very different from us becomes impossible.
We are also living in an “instant gratification” reality, where endless information and constant scrolling make it harder to stay present.
In an super-connected world, we are loosing connection with each other.
We can turn this around, by growing our ability to shift where our attention goes and by expanding your capacity for listening.
✨Will you commit to doing your part?
