Listen

The way we listen affects the speaker’s confidence. If we listen as ‘experts’, the speaker may fear exposing their uncertainty, or they may move from useful problem-solving to seeking our advice. If we listen as ‘critics’, to judge or point out errors, they may fear exposing their mistakes. If we listen with a vested interest, they may feel unable to explore negative emotions or hurts.

To be a good listener, then, we need to take on some particular qualities. These are the conversational equivalent of moving to the rhythm of the music in dance, a basis for everything that follows. Just as even pre-verbal children will spontaneously move in time to music, our child-teachers bring the innate qualities of curiosity during conversation.

Open-mindedness: [...] To begin with our task is to understand how things appear to this person. We are listening with open-minded curiosity about their view, in order to understand it as much as any person can ever understand another. [...]

Humility: [...] Genuine humility always levels up. Levelling up is especially important when we are listening to someone with whom we are in serious disagreement. To hear them, and to allow them to feel heard, we must listen to the views with the same respectful interest we would expect were roles reversed. [...] Curiosity communicates, ‘I want to understand this better. Tell me. I’ll listen.’

When someone is suffering, their thoughts and emotions are theirs alone. It is the extent to which we are prepared to see their perspective, acknowledge their experience, and allow ourselves to feel discomfort on their behalf that dictates whether our response is perceived as pity, sympathy or empathy. Often we do not fully discriminate between these responses (?tea and sympathy’ can be a maxim for any of them), but the differences are important when we are engaged in support for a person in distress.

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People who view themselves as ‘kind’ can fall into the trap of over-helpfulness. They jump in to reassure, to promise help and support, to problem-solve. It is a particular struggle for many people who work in caring roles because they are motivated by the notion of being helpers, taking action to solve others’ problems. Learning to listen quietly, to accompany people in their distress and even to use helpful questions to explore that distress more deeply can feel uncomfortably challenging to them, as though allowing expression of all those painful emotions is a failure of kindness, a lack of helpful action. In fact, sorrow shared is a different way of helping, one that is deeply appreciated by people in distress and often remembered long afterwards.

Listening to the voice within with self-acceptance allows us to meet ourselves, to explore our past and to recognise our potential. Like every other person, we are both flawed and yet magnificent individuals, each with capacity to reflect on our experiences in order to grow and flourish. Each of us is capable and worthy of holding a mirror to ourselves to see the non-judgemental truth of our enormous possibility.