Compassionate Conversation Toolkit: Heartful Listening
Heartful listening is an active and embodied process of sustaining focused attention on the speaker, in the absence of one’s ego.
Active because I am filtering out distractions (i) from the immediate external environment (including my phone), and (ii) arising internally from my own biases and filters.
Embodied because I am attending to tone of voice, somatic expressions, and word patterns. Often I find it useful to alternate between listening with my eyes closed (but still facing the speaker), and looking intently at the speaker, for brief moments.
The above is more likely to be achieved when my ego’s not around because it means I’m less inclined to judge, categorise, become impatient, or succumb to the temptation to “be right”.
Heartful listening often involves:
- Letting silence “speak”, i.e. a pause is not always a reason for me to speak. Sometimes, silence is the space where the speaker needs to process certain emotions, or decide whether to go deeper, or is searching for words.
- The art of reflection (not parroting). That’s when I reflect (like the surface of water) back what I heard to check for understanding, and to let the speaker know that I have in fact been listening. Click here for a simple how-to guide.
