I Hear You
The need for human connection is primitive and inescapable. A year+ of this pandemic and its subsequent social isolation has taken a toll on our psychic, physiological, and spiritual/emotional health. And even though we’ve been “connected” via Zoom, social media and other digital avenues, Covid has illuminated how insufficient this type of connectivity is to our baseline happiness.
At our yoga retreat in the Shenandoah Valley last month, MJ and I first and foremost wanted to explore connection and how it related to happiness. We decided to fine-tune that concept by focusing on listening. We all know that listening is an integral part of communication, but it’s something at which most of us aren’t very skilled.
Close your eyes and think for a moment: Who do you know is a great listener? Why do you think that?
MJ asked us to explore these questions in her first workshop after breaking us up into small “Vegas Groups” (because what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas…). Each of us was given the opportunity to share our answers with our group while the rest of the group quietly listened. She then asked us to come to neutral and silently answer a follow-up question she had gotten from a Harvard survey:
How well do you think you listen?
I try
I’m decent
I’m tuned in
(Please answer this question for yourself before you read further…)
I don’t know how the rest of my Vegas group answered because we didn’t share our answers with each other, but my silent answer was 2: I’m decent.
As it turns out, 92% of the Harvard study respondents had also thought they were decent listeners and 7% had identified themselves as “trying hard.” The twist is, that when the respondents’ close friends or partners had been asked to rate the listening skills of the respondents, the numbers had been almost completely reversed. The 7% who had responded with “I try” had turned out to be the better listeners!
That’s because listening is hard. We’re hard-wired to be better speakers/responders than listeners. After the retreat, my daughter, Aline, and I were puzzling about why that was. She suggested it might be because we needed to be easily distractible on the Savannah in order to escape a predator at a moment’s notice. Whatever the reason, listening is a skill that can be practiced and improved.
MJ offered some simple (but not easy!) practices to improve our listening skills:
Listen to understand, not to reply. Great listeners spend time getting to the bottom of a discussion by asking the speaker clarifying questions. Great listeners don’t share their opinions or try to “fix” until asked.
Our minds will always wander. Acknowledge when yours does in a conversation. A great listener will have the vulnerability to acknowledge that their mind has wandered. They’ll own it and request data to reinforce with their partner the importance of the conversation. Having a pre-planned “hip pocket statement” can help ease the initial tension about what to do next when you’ve missed the conversation. Example: “I’m so sorry. What you’re saying is important to me, but I’ve gotten hijacked by internal conversation. Would you please say that again?”
Don’t miss the message in the mess. Emotionally charged conversations can carry “stacked” messages, i.e., the conversation starts with one topic and then snowballs into three or more other issues. (“Remember that time four years ago when you…?) The “mess” of the message stems from the emotional charge that the people bring to the conversation. A great listener stays with the original message, remains calm, then asks clarifying questions.
As yogis, we know that great listening begins with listening to ourselves. We listen to ourselves during yoga and meditation. We listen to ourselves when we become silent in nature. We listen to ourselves when we shut down tech. We listen to ourselves when we seek out experiences and people that bring us laughter and joy. We listen to ourselves when we listen to our deepest desires, and ultimately, to our Highest Selves.
Listen. Can you hear yourself?