‘Empathic Listening – Dancing in the Moment’ – By Allen Martin – Consultant, Sales / Development Trainer, Accredited Executive Coach and Author

This is article number 2 of a new series exploring the 'Meta Game' - the magic that exists beneath the 'words' of the communication.

*The 3rd monthly article in the new 'Meta Game' series is being published in May and is on the subject of:

*Powerful Storytelling - Painting Pictures in People's Minds*

----------------------------------------------------

Monday, 2nd April 2018 *17.30pm*

?

'There is a voice that doesn't use words - Listen' - Rumi

It was around 6.00am on a beautiful summer’s morning and I was awoken peacefully by the gentle tweeting of a family of red-breasted robins who nested yearly in the same tree in my colour-laden garden. I arose slowly and opened the curtains and marvelled at the incredible piercing blue azure sky, the branches of the powerful silver birch swaying gently in a light summer breeze, the cirrus clouds drifting majestically high in the sky and all was calm in the world.

Everything seemed so uncomplicated, no filters, no noise, no voices, no interference and all was as pure as the world intended it.

My mind was still and free and able to take in all these incredible emotions.

I could truly sense the wonder around me.

Imagine if we were able to recreate this feeling and this mindset in all our day to day lives, our minds free and clear?.

Imagine if we can all be fully present in every communication and allowing our inner wisdom to flourish and ‘dance in the moment with somebody’, revelling in both a conscious and subconscious ballet .

I want you please to 'remember now' a time when you have danced really closely with someone special in your life or if you have watched Strictly Come Dancing in the UK or Dancing with the Stars for my many American friends.

You will have noticed that the couples who link and bond the best together are not always the greatest, the most co-ordinated or the fittest dancers – what they do possess in abundance are the hidden gems that allow their bodies to be as one, they have a sense of 'oneness', they glide effortlessly ‘in flow’ together and their bodies are ‘listening to each other' at a deeper truly empathic level which powerfully connects them.

Notice how they are literally ‘dancing in the moment’ together, listening to the needs of the other – changing and altering as their ‘personal opus’ progresses, with a sprinkling of gut feeling, instinct and joined wisdom – until the incredible conclusion when they throw themselves to the floor, smiling, proud, confident and totally as one.

They await the judge’s comments. As important and knowledgeable as they are – do the marks really matter? – they have an outsiders view of the world, they are not in the empathic 'oneness' of the dance.

The dancers have already entered the arena, dealt with the challenges and  ‘scored with the rapport’  – in their minds they are already celebrating the moment at a deep level long before the ‘seven!’ can be heard being uttered and the board is held in the air.

I have truly wondered all my life if communication between two people is really a dance?

As a child we start to initially learn the simplest steps of this dance and life seems so uncomplicated and easy and our minds are carefree, quieter and receptive. We begin to have conversations with our parents, family and friends. We start to notice and sense that the words will get us so far and that maybe to get what we want and need from the conversation, we may need to introduce a few more complicated ‘dance steps’ and little raw emotion into the proceedings, so we develop our skills a little more subtlety.

We then as a child notice how they react to a louder voice, a quieter voice, we look at their eyes, we feel that we may need to adopt a new strategy to get the result that we want. 

This is an important part of a child’s learning – concentrating on the words however noticing that the real magic is happening elsewhere  – buried under the surface in the body language and the way we use our voices, our eyes and our bodies all as one. We learn a whole new skill-set to go with our words……..and then we start to grow up……..and then many years later as adults……..

……..we are having the same conversations using similar words yet the dance feels so different, we are falling over each other’s feet, there is often 'duality' instead of 'oneness' and it is often like we are all listening to a different tune.

Very often when we now have conversations, if we are being really 'true to ourselves' , we can often feel if that our empathic listening skills were being adjudicated by the ‘the judging panel’ we would be lucky to be coming away with a ‘five!’

I’m curious in the words of the wonderful late Eric Morecambe speaking to Andre Previn in the famous comedy sketch, in response to Andre Previn telling him he was playing all the wrong notes and he was out of tune on the piano, when he said:

‘I’m playing all the right notes – not necessarily in the right order’ whether he was closer to all our realities than the famous sketch realised - or maybe it had a deeper meaning after all?

How deeply as adults do we really empathically listen to people?

How often are we playing the right notes in the right order with each other?

We all seem to have so much noise, so much interference, we are always so busy, we are always in a meeting, out of a meeting, worried about so many things in life – do we really have time any more to deeply listen to people. I do not mean 'hear' what they say –  I mean deeply and empathically listen to the exclusion of everything else as if you were the only two people on earth.

Noticing those nuances in someone’s body language, that flick of the eye, a change in tone, an altering of the pace, a variance in the rise and fall that we became so adept as a child to get the result that we wanted.

Imagine yourself as a master potter. You are standing there in front of your wheel and the ‘formless’ clay is ready to be moulded. You take your time and craft the most beautiful and incredible pot which you will show to the world. You have created ‘form’ from the ‘formless’ and understandably the world concentrates on the pot.

Yet the true magic is in the clay that created the pot.

We have moulded it, listened to it, watered it and created this wonderful pot…. yet the real beauty of the pot is in its creation.

I’m curious if the ‘words’ of our communication are the pot and the ‘tone’ and ‘body language’ are the clay?

Sometimes we need to look under the surface for the real reason why the pot turned out so beautifully, acknowledge it and celebrate it.

We need to ask ourselves why as a human race we have we allowed the contaminatory noise of our busy lives to get in the way of our beautiful listening dance?

Let’s remember and cherish those days and remember the innate skills and wisdom we learned as children and connect at a deeper level when we are  listening now in our lives.

**Two can really become one when we communicate…… **                                    

-We all long for the day when we all truly listen to understand and not to respond.

-We all long for the day when we all deeply and empathically listen for not what is being said however for what is NOT being said. (Remember the clay and the pot metaphor always).

-We all long for the day when we can all truly dance in the moment together like we were the only two people in the world.

And what a beautiful world it will be for all of us when we can all wake up and it is that summer’s morning, the time is 6.00am, there is a gentle tweeting of a family of red-breasted robins in our ears, we can all see an incredible piercing azure blue sky, we can sense calmness, the branches of the powerful silver birch swaying gently in a light summer breeze, the cirrus clouds drifting majestically high in the sky and we can all lean down  and we all put on our dancing shoes together……….

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

We dance for laughter,

We dance for tears,

We dance for madness,

We dance for fears,

We dance for hopes,

We dance for screams,

We are the dancers,

We create the dreams.

Albert Einstein

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Allen Martin is a Business Consultant, Sales / Development Trainer, Accredited Executive Coach and Author currently working in the fields of Media, Finance, Commodities and Charities to help both individuals and groups develop their own personal toolboxes and become even better versions of themselves.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------