Most of us don’t listen well a lot of the time, we don’t listen to each other and worse, we don’t listen to ourselves – not with any depth at least. We’re busy, preoccupied or distracted, and often not present in the conversations we are having.
Listening is an embodied experience – it’s not just about what you hear, it’s what you see, and critically what you feel. When you are too superficial, you might get the words people share, or your own internal dialogue, but you probably won’t get the ‘feels’.
You might just get the wrong message – especially when it comes to your internal dialogue – or the voice in your head.
The oldest, survival driven parts of your brain react the fastest, they are trying to keep you safe, find patterns or fill in the gaps to predict and flush your system with the most appropriate neurochemicals. This of course alters how you feel; think the ‘butterflies’ before you do something important or scary, or the jitters after an adrenaline surge.
When you listen superficially, you often finish up reacting rather than connecting – and this is just as true for the things you say to yourself by the way.
When we truly listen to others, we have the potential to grow wiser, see different perspectives and expand our horizons.
We also get the opportunity to interrogate what we are hearing (internally I mean). Are the words congruent with their body language, does their emotion fit, how does this map to who they are and your previous experiences of them, do you believe the words? Put another way, am I safe, do I trust them.
Don’t worry, this is not as laborious as it sounds, you’ve been doing most of it unconsciously all your life, it’s not some tick off checklist you need to deploy. You just need to be present for long enough for all your emotional, social, logical processing to kick in. You need to connect not react.
For many of us the bigger challenge is internal, the conversations you have with yourself. How often do you have an idea or want something for yourself, then quickly follow with a reason why it wouldn’t work or is not possible?
Often the things we say to ourselves are limiting – at least superficially, because your brain is looking for patterns and repeating things that kept you safe previously.
Welcome to your comfort zone!
These are the conversations that limited you when left unchecked, they make you play small, doubt your abilities and reduce your confidence.
These are the conversations you need to learn to recognise, give time to and be braver about.
Learn to listen to yourself, deeply.
What words are coming up, how do you feel, and are you having a fear driven response?
There is no quick fix for this, it takes intention, practice and the courage to dig into what you really feel – not just your first reaction. The good news is over time it will become a habit, a pattern your brain recognises and deploys, if you stay present and are prepared to connect not react.
Just like with other people, conversations with yourself need to be an embodied experience, what do you hear, how or what are you feeling, where are you feeling it, and what is it telling you. This is not a prescriptive list, you may already have ways of ‘checking in’ or staying in touch with yourself – use what works for you.
The important thing here is that you are listening to and connecting with your whole self, not just the fear driven bit.
This wasn’t designed to be a ‘teach’ on how to listen well – there are plenty of great ones already available.
It was a reminder you already have everything you need to be an amazing human, and the leader you want to be – you have to be brave enough to listen and trust yourself.
Recent Comments