Skillful Inquiry: Listening to create care & connection
For those of you that would prefer to read, the article is transcribed below:
“The experience of being listened to all the way on something—until your meaning is completely clear to another human being—is extremely rare in life.”—Mónica Guzmán, author of I Never Thought of it That Way.
How is it some people just put us at ease? We open up to them and feel comfortable and safe sharing our stories? What is the gift behind that art? What are the ingredients of listening so that people feel heard? In such a divisive time, listening well so that another person feels heard, feels your care, and feels connected to you, is a more important skill than ever. In this short article, I offer some questions to ask yourself. Are you a good listener?
What is your purpose in listening? We are goal-directed creatures and when we enter into a conversation, whether we are aware or not, we have an agenda. Even just chatting to pass the time is an agenda. If our intention is to understand the other person, then that is a purpose. Are your actions aligned with that purpose? Or do you have another purpose sneaking around in the background, for example, to appear intelligent? To be right? To be liked? To provoke attention? Part of good listening is to know our tendencies towards less aligned agendas and set those aside.
Can you put aside your model of how things should work and what is right and valuable, and really hear the other’s perspective? This is a hard task. Every human being has to create models of how things work in order to navigate the moment-to-moment demands of modern life. Life comes at us too fast to consciously think through every response we must make. Thus, we are usually blind to our own model of how things work because we are looking at the world through that model rather than being able to look at our model. We discover our model when confronted with someone else whose model of reality is different than ours. Can you put yours aside for a moment, and remain curious about how the world works in the other person’s experience?
Are you present? Really there with open ears and a willing heart, rather than thinking of what you might do in their place or what you think is right? Are you truly curious as to how their world works? The average person speaks about 120 to 150 words a minute. Our brains can think faster than that. The temptation is to fill those spaces with our own thoughts rather than holding space with interest and curiosity about what the other person’s life is like.
Are you in synch with them? This is often called rapport and is both a body-based phenomenon and a prosody-based phenomenon. There are lots of videos on the internet showing people crossing their legs together, assuming the same posture, adopting each other’s speech patterns as they attune to each other. Every human being has their own natural rhythm. For instance, the way you breathe, your heart beats, your size, the culture you grew up in all shape your natural rhythm and tempo. All these factors come together to create what feels like the “right” rhythm to you. Listening well means you are able to attune to the other person’s rhythm, adapting yourself to come into synch with them. It took me a long time to realize my rhythm of speaking and pausing was significantly different (and quicker) than my husband’s. I would start talking again before he had time to formulate his response. Our basic body and mind tempos don’t usually change. Awareness of that difference can enable us to work together to accommodate the difference.
Do you ask open-ended questions, or close-ended questions? (And how does it feel to be asked a yes/no closed-ended question?) Open-ended questions are questions that often start with a how or a what, as in, “how did that make you feel?” “What was it like to receive that?” Open-ended questions let the other person have the floor and direct the conversation. You let them steer rather than take control. Closed-ended questions shut down the conversation and give control to the question asker.
Do you close the loop and ensure you understand what is being said? Using open-ended reflective questions like “So, if I understand you correctly, you’re saying…” “Is this what you are saying…?” “Have I got this right…?” Invites connection and correction. These questions empower your speaker to correct any misperceptions and hear themselves think. Humans are complicated creatures. A lot of our thinking processes are hidden from view so we can get on with the business of living life. Hearing our thoughts reflected in a genuinely caring and interested way is a powerful way to learn more about ourselves.
“I’ve come to think of questioning as a moral practice. When you are asking a good question, you are adopting a posture of humility.” --David Brooks, author of How to Know a Person.
Do you genuinely care about the other person? Are you able to regard them with respect as a human being even if you disagree with their views? Are you able to see the human in the story? The person who has walked down a different road in life than yours? Even siblings often experience the same family quite differently. The quality of your questions make others feel cared for and genuinely seen.
Are you able to foreground their story and keep yours in the background? Too often we are reminded of our own experiences in another’s story, and we bring that forward, in a sense taking the spotlight off them and turning it onto ourselves. Are you able to note your own memories while returning the spotlight to them? Do you remain curious about their experience and their story?
As many of you know, the first step in constellation work is a conversation. These conversations can be brief or lengthy or anywhere in between. These conversations are critical. Not just for the content of the client’s issue. These conversations are also the place where we connect with our clients and invite them into a safe space with us so that we can explore their situation together. To create these conversations well - and quickly since in a workshop setting you may only have ten minutes to talk - takes skill. These skills and more are the basis of the Master Class I’m offering here in Aurora, on The Art of Skillful Inquiry: Chairwork. This is such a rich topic. I’m honored to be able to bring you the expertise of Barnett Pearce and many other teachers who have informed my understanding of how to communicate effectively in the chair work step of the constellation process. I always remind my students, good chair work makes good floor work. How well you accomplish this first step sets the stage for what follows.
“Each person is a mystery. And when you are surrounded by mysteries…it’s best to live life in the form of a question.”--David Brooks, author of How to Know a Person.
