I attended a brilliant workshop this past weekend on the art of listening. Listening is a skill that requires constant adjustment depending on the situation. We all have good listening days and bad listening days, and we all have a tendency to listen more to people who we're either closest to or who can do us a favour. There are those rare moments with a stranger on the bus, whose story peaks our interest.
For this particular workshop, the participants were a group of diverse individuals of friends, acquaintances, and people getting to know each other for the first time. Some participants were seated in an inner circle and others were seated in an outer circle facing the inner circle participants, so we each had a partner. The outer circle would rotate after each conversation was completed.
The workshop facilitators asked us the first question to commence the first stage of the activity. Those in the inner circle were given the chance to respond to the question while we in the outer circle were supposed to listen without saying a word. The exercise was pretty challenging, as my natural reaction to someone telling me about their experiences and/or feelings is to nod or utter phrases to show I'm listening and making an effort to understand them. In fact, my behaviour is not necessarily good listening, as it might involve the listener thinking in her head what kind of response would be appropriate, which distracts her from really paying attention to the speaker. We then switched roles and those in the outer circle became the speakers. Different questions were thrown our way as we rotated to listen/speak to another participant. The facilitators would interrupt every now and then to remind the listeners not to speak.
The second stage involved the listener being given the chance to ask two questions to the speaker in order to gain a better understanding of the speaker's experience. The rule this time was not to ask any questions beginning with 'why'. Why? Because the word 'why' has a negative connotation attached to it with the implication that the listener is sort of cross-examining the speaker rather than showing genuine concern. Point taken! We asked all the how, what, where, and who questions we could think of!
During the third stage, the listener had to reflect in their own words what the speaker had just said back to the speaker. We only had a bit of time to do this, so the reflection became more of a hurried list of what we had heard than a meaningful response. I thought what took place between my partner and I was quite interesting. As we reflected each other's stories, we put in our own analysis of what might have caused those emotions and/or experiences. I guess that could be a form of indirect advice, which we were not allowed to do in this workshop, but both of us seemed to enjoy the other person's take on our unique situations.
Another aspect of the workshop was the inclusion of touch therapy. As we listened and spoke, we had to place the palms of our hands face up and the speaker would place his/her hands on ours face up. When roles were switched, so were the positions of the hands. Although some people may have a problem with this since not everyone is comfortable with being touched, what the action did was to secure our attention to each other. The hands linked us and brought our heads closer to each other, so that we remained each other's sole focus. It was a bit tiring after the constant rotations, but was far better than having a table or some other barrier separating one from the other.
Overall, what I learned is that listening is a dynamic multi-faceted skill that involves a harmonious balance of silence, body language, and voice. Both the speaker and the listener have a responsibility to each other: the speaker has to articulate what they are feeling/thinking/experiencing and the listener has to respond without judgment, which is not always an easy path to choose, but if we remind ourselves that once we were in the same boat or that we might someday be in the same boat, we can accept the speaker's situation with more compassion.
Regardless of who is actually speaking, people are always listening to each other as they pick up cues on what the other person is thinking by way of body language. We know when a person really cares about us and when they don't. Likewise, people know when we care about them and when we don't. Hopefully, the more we are aware of the way we choose to listen or not to listen, the more attentive we will be to others, and also to our own inner voices.
I learned a lot about listening in this workshop and am thankful to the facilitators, Linah Hashimi and Siddharth Akali, who organized it for all the participants on this special weekend getaway. They presented the workshop with a youthful brand of professionalism and sensitivity. These two bright young facilitators proved they had the talent and the knowledge to connect with a multi-generational and multi-ethnic group of individuals. At the end of the workshop, they opened the floor to feedback and accepted our comments with respect and humility. They listened.
To really listen is to accept people as they are. We are all on the same healing journey to become closer to the realm of compassionate consciousness and to our own potential. When we find people who give us their time and genuine attention, we feel like we matter.
In Oprah's words:
"Do you see me? Do you hear me? Does what I say matter to you?"
Yes, it does, because every emotion you are experiencing, I too am experiencing, have experienced, or will experience. Our situations might be different, but we're all part of the same continuum of being human.
