Active listening vs deep listening

I’ve created this newsletter to share my?shifts?and insights. I’m a human work in progress, just like you. I invite you to explore what could be useful for you to create change in your life.?

Read this envisaging it is about YOU.?

Take a few moments, slow down and immerse yourself.

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“Listening has the quality of the wizard’s alchemy. It has the power to melt armour and produce beauty in the midst of hatred.”?Brian Muldoon

Active listening vs deep?listening

I have always been told I was a good listener. Perhaps you have too?

Working as a teacher, I trained multiple times in?active listening.?You’ve probably been on a few such courses yourself.

Active listening skills often include ideas like pay attention, withhold judgement, request clarification, show empathy, use open body language, summarise, reflect and notice emotions.

I prided myself on being a great listener. I could tune in and ramp up my listening at will. I believed people felt heard.

What I noticed

Active listening can be a noisy experience. Not only do you listen to others, there’s also the noise of your own thinking to attend to: the endless chatter, opinions and thinking.

Active listening is, well, active!

For the listener, much of the activity lies?within?the listener. More specifically, in the thinking mind, the thoughts the listener experiences.

The thinking noise is happening all the time, so you have to really pay attention and notice it as it happens 'live'.

As you process what you hear, your thinking often appears as an opinion. ‘Do I agree or disagree with them?’ ‘Are they right or wrong about this?’ ‘what’s the problem or solution here?’ ‘What’s my opinion?’

Then you wait, bursting to share your opinion. So, are you really listening or working out what to say??

Are you listening to someone or listening to your thinking about someone?

What else?

Active listening keeps a lot of your energy focused on YOU as the listener. Your opinion, your contribution and your judgement of the speaker.

Your experience of yourself gets in the way of listening to the other person.

There’s little wizard alchemy there. Limited connection. It’s all about getting to an often predetermined outcome. Where’s the creativity? The magic?

I see this clearly looking back on teaching.

As useful as active listening can be, it remains a set of tools to guide people to do what I think they should do next or be doing now. It’s still about me and my influence on their life, because hat’s how many of us think a leader should listen and behave. Us knowing more or better in some way.

Am I?really?seeing and experiencing people, genuinely listening, while in my mind the focus is on me and how I’m perceived?

Now what?

The more I explored deeper listening the more I realised I was not listening to other people at all.

But you can’t suddenly switch off your thoughts.

You?can?shift?your relationship to thoughts?and choose to notice them and not buy into or engage with them. Allow them to appear and gently drift off.

You?can?put your whole focus on the person in front of you.

You?can?connect with who is speaking with deeper listening by listening with your whole body. The outcome is that people can feel seen and heard like never before. That’s great leadership and that’s where the magic and power of listening lies.

And a little secret??Deep listening is not hard (shhhhhh! Don't tell!)

In fact, the more you relax into listening to how someone is speaking and what they are saying, the more your thinking quietly drops away.

1. Anchor into your body. I use my feet. I notice the connection to the ground and the temperature or textures I can feel. As someone speaks I notice the sensations in my body.

This helps me move away from my thinking enormously and truly listen. It becomes a visceral experience.

2. Listen to understand?(rather than fix or advise) how someone else is experiencing the world. Do not interrupt.

Shifting?from ‘me me me’ to ‘you you you’ is a powerful dynamic that opens up a connection between two people.

3. Notice your thinking as others are speaking. Hold your tongue behind your teeth to remind you not to speak and pause for a few seconds before replying.

Often the person has not finished speaking, give them space. Experiment and test not offering an opinion and simply listening. See how others respond and what you now hear.

At first this can feel a bit strange. Your mind might rebel with a load of thinking. Like any skill it takes a little bit of practice.

Ultimately, deep listening is a practice that has no end and incredible benefits. That’s the gift that keeps on giving.

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What are your thoughts? What more do you want to know about deep listening?

I'd love to hear.?

Email me back or connect via socials.?

Until next time, much love

Rose x