The Gift of Being Heard
The Zulu greeting Sawubona means ‘I see you’ and the response, ‘Ngikhona’ means ‘I am here’. Inherent in this greeting is the sense that until you see me, I don’t exist and that by recognizing me, you bring me into existence. Nowhere is this more evident today than the urgent cry people are increasingly expressing for simply feeling heard. Throughout social discourse, today people are literally screaming at each other because it feels evermore challenging to feel that anyone out there is actually listening.
I recently began a support engagement with a residential community in the throes of deep turmoil. Everyone involved agreed that the first step needed to restore peace was to hold a series of deep listening sessions so residents could be assured that their personal concerns were fully heard. No matter that everyone lives together and shares their daily routine--though everyone is talking all the time--there is still an all-pervasive sense of never being heard.
As a facilitator, we learn quickly that when someone in the room becomes hyperverbal and starts hogging airtime, the best way to calm them is to focus deeper attention on their words. Through full eye contact and repeatedly reflecting back their words and meaning they eventually feel their message is being heard and finally relinquish the speaking role to others.
As an audience member in intimate public speaking events, I have also repeatedly experienced that my regular practice of deep listening brings the speaker’s focus more in my direction. Recently a speaker came over to me after their presentation and remarked, “I have never felt so listened to as a public speaker.” Evidently, even in a room full of listeners, not all listening is equal.
Deep listening skills have to be learned and practiced and are a reflection of the growth of our human capacity to see, hear and experience the full essence of another human being.
Deep Listening Practices
1. Be 100% Present - clear your mind and emotions to bring forward your full attention.
2. Engage your body in the listening experience. Hold yourself as someone who is fully attentive, upright, forward, and alert with good eye contact. Mirror back gestures, smiles, laughter, sadness. Let the speaker know you are fully engaged in their experience.
3. Be actively empathetic by being open to feeling all the feelings of the speaker--as if they were your own. Let their emotions resonate in your heart and body. The “as if” principle here is key. Deep empathy asks for a fine balance between being fully open to the speaker’s experience while being attentive to the real and healthy boundaries between people. The skill involved in this is the ability to stay grounded in ourselves even while being open to the full experience of the speaker. Being grounded here speaks to staying connected to our own bodies and feelings and using our breathing and attention to remain relaxed and allow the energy of whatever emotions arise to move naturally through us. This is a subtle flow that can require practice to learn.
4. Listen for and notice what is not spoken but is no less evident in the emotions expressed by the speaker. Often what is not said has more import than what people are willing to speak to. When appropriate reflect this noticing back to the speaker and ask for more information to better understand their full experience.
5. Reflect back an appreciation for the speaker’s experience. Though all the previous steps definitely send an unspoken message of appreciation, giving words to your appreciation will let them know they have been seen and heard.
6. Take care of yourself. Deep listening requires energy. Even with an awareness of the boundaries between you and the speaker, listeners may need recuperation time to clear the speaker’s energy and come fully back into themselves.
I’ve had the good fortune in my life to spend time with several deeply evolved meditation masters. In every case, I experienced that they were also masters at focusing the spotlight of their attention and awareness on whoever they were talking to. I can vouch for the fact that it is more than a little disconcerting when someone clearly senses the full state of our being, regardless of the words we’re speaking. However, this type of whole-self awareness is the springboard to genuinely hearing another person, which is a most generous and loving gift.