Deep Listening Might Save Us
How learning to listen might save us!
It has been said, “to listen is to love.” I agree.
I am best loved when someone is deeply listening to me. I give love when I choose to listen and to keep myself from talking, responding, sharing my opinion and sharing any advice when someone else is talking.
All of us know what it’s like to not be listened to, don’t we? It’s painful. It’s awful to have a lunch or dinner with someone that that person doesn’t ask you a single question. It’s all about them. You leave empty. You leave upset. You leave questioning how a person could actually dominate the entire conversation and “it” be all about them. But, it happens and it happens a lot.
On the other hand, when we realize that we have been listened to—really listened to, we feel known. We feel understood. We feel honored. We feel loved.
Dale and Juanita Ryan, counselors wrote:
"It is a remarkable experience to have someone really listen -- to have someone's undivided attention and interest. When someone listens, they communicate to us on a very deep level that we are valuable. Their listening breaks our isolation and aloneness. Our inner ache is assuaged in the simple and loving act of being listened to and to be deeply listened to in a conversation. And, it decreases the fears which come when our thoughts and feelings we want to express don’t quite come out right. are confused. Talking out loud in the presence of a person who listens carefully allows us to gain clarity and perspective. Gradually, being listened to can begin to convince us that we are worth someone's attention and worth being loved.
When someone listens with respect and acceptance we are comforted and consoled. Our pain is soothed. Our burden is lightened."
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Some of the ingredients in deep listening are:
-Undivided attention
-Focus and interest on the one talking
-Holding the other person as valuable
-Giving dignity by withholding my opinion, my story and my advice.
-Not forming any opinion while the person is still speaking—but holding their words in the heart until they are done.
These are acquired skills that can be learned and can revolutionize a team, a marriage, parenting and organizations as well as the political environment we are living in right at this very moment.
“How do I listen?
How do I listen to others?
As if everyone were my Master,
Speaking to me
His cherished last words.”—Hafiz
It is in the act of “cherishing” that many of us need to do our work. We’re not good at cherishing hearing someone’s words as much as we are in thinking that our words—our own words—are the words someone needs to hear. How arrogant of us!
To cherish another’s words is to hold them as sacred—to hold their story in your own heart and let it rest there—inside of you.
The safer a person feels with you, more and more will be shared. And if silence is “your choice to keep” then you choose to honor the silence. No force is exerted. No authority is assumed. There is no entitlement given to break the silence.
It’s no secret in my family that I dislike doing a zoom conversation with each of our sons and their families. Perhaps, it’s that some degree of ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder) kicks in? In a practical way, it’s just hard to hear all the grands talk—sometimes at once and it’s hard to really listen to what they want to say and what I want to ask. Often I feel frozen and just watch. I want to ask someone a question but find it hard. So many times, I withdraw, even though I’m physically present. I’m wondering if you might relate?
I much prefer the 1:1. When I’m with my grands one on one, or with a friend or even doing a 1:1 session of spiritual direction, I can focus. I can fully give my attention. All my senses are perked up to listen with my eyes and listen with my heart—as well as my own two ears. To listen is more than just hearing words filled with vowels, consonants and syllables. There is the pause. There is noticing the eyes filling up with tears. There is seeing the lump in the throat. There is sensing the nervousness or reluctance of the one beginning to tell their story. There is the space between the words that also needs to be acknowledged. Listening sees everything and attempts to be curious about all that is seen and all that is not seen—but heard and perhaps not heard at all.
The Chinese word for “listen” has images for: undivided attention, you, heart, eyes and ear—all crucial ingredients for the intended meaning of the English word, “to listen.” Take a look here :.
We are living in a day where there is so, so, so much rhetoric—rapid fire, Gatling gun, assaulting words, hard words, strong words—too many words. It’s gotten us all into a heap of trouble. We are troubled by all the words and speaking.
So many words—too many words is a form of abuse to the soul, I believe. I use the word abuse intentionally. Why abuse? Because abuse is not just what is done “to”us—abuse it also what is withheld from us. When we are not heard, then the message we get is, “I don’t matter.” That’s not the truth. Listening validates that the one speaking matters.
What if we made a pack with one another to listen deeply rather than speak often? Even the New Testament speaks to this. I simply love how Eugene Peterson translates the familiar text of “Be quick to hear and slow to speak in James 1:19. The Message puts it this way:
Post this at all the intersections, dear friends: Lead with your ears, follow up with your tongue, and let anger straggle along in the rear. God’s righteousness doesn’t grow from human anger. So throw all spoiled virtue and cancerous evil in the garbage. In simple humility, let our gardener, God, landscape you with the Word, making a salvation-garden of your life.
Post the need for Deep listening at all intersections of our lives—on our bathroom mirrors, on the steering wheel of our cars; in the Board room, in the doctor’s office, and in the church!
What if we practiced listening more than we talk. What if we use listening as a spiritual discipline to give someone the space, the right and the opportunity to speak. What if this really is love?
Ten years ago, Gwen and I began a counseling journey to learn how to listen to each other. At that time, we had been married decades but all the decades and years did not offer us a way to really learn to listen to each other. Despite the fact that we were trained and somewhat skilled in listening to others professionally, we kept coming up empty when it came to listening deeply to each other. In the counseling office, we went to school to be taught and coached by a gifted therapist and she helped us learn how to listen—to really listen—to listen deeply. It was the best money we ever spent. It was the best skill we ever acquired. It has been the very best tool that helped us moved into the next season of our marriage and to find our hearts renewed and desiring to live more fully into our future.
Every Sunday, we play special music as a sort of “Sabbath Playlist.” I was the first one up and I started compiling some new songs that I felt would be nice to hear. I did a search for a new favorite composer, Dan Forrest, who actually lives near our home in the mountains. In my online search, I saw a song pop up that I did not know. It was titled, “Let Me Listen.” The words are by Charles Anthony Silvestri and it was written in 2022. I played it. I played it again. I put in on repeat on my player and then I did a search for the lyrics. I loved it. I think you might also.
This remarkable song is a beautiful and inviting movement from one human being to another human being to really listen—to listen deeply. Not only is this a song for marriage and friendship, it is a sort of National Anthem for counselors and spiritual directors. It is a song for teachers. It is a song for parents. It is a song for everyone.
Here are the lyrics and this is available to everyone in this particular post:
let me listen
We come from different places,
You and I,
on different paths we journey;
let me walk beside you for a while –
let me listen.
So briefly do our lonely paths converge,
Yours and mine,
along this human journey;
what hollow loss to never hear your song –
let me listen.
Let me listen,
let me listen as you tell your story:
Your triumphs and your tears,
Your trials and your fears.
Your story never has been mine to tell –
so let me listen.
And if a silence is your choice to keep,
then I will keep it with you;
as long as we walk together,
You and I,
I will listen..
Too long you’ve waited, too long,
to share your journey, your song –
so let me listen.
– Charles Anthony Silvestri, 2022
Here is the You Tube link to listen and watch a wonderful recording of this remarkable song: Go to Song on You Tube I realize that not all of us are into choral music these days. But choral music is a large part of my formation and education. It is the place where I learned to be a team—to defer to other parts and voices and how to be a part of something bigger than myself. So, try it and see what you think. My point here is the lyrics and the music put together in this one particular song about listening.
When I think of this kind of “deep listening,” I am drawn to explore what this kind of listening might look like spiritually—to give our full ear, our distracted ears to the Creator. To offer our full attention to Silence. To observe. To notice. To become curious. What if we saw prayer as not such much unloading our problems on God but to listen to what might be said to us? This shift has made all the difference in my prayers.
Listening has saved my marriage. Listening saves my life each and every single day.
I love how listening creates space for silence and silence creates space for listening. A grace filled post. Thank you.
Powerful song. What would happen if in these divided, turbulent times - what would happen if we would simply, deeply listen?