Feeling it out loud.
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One of the most powerful experiences I repeatedly had in therapy was hearing myself say things out loud. I was often putting words to things that had never been fully felt or acknowledged, let alone expressed verbally.
The experience was tangibly physical, as if I was retrieving some awkward object lodged deep inside some dark corner of my body. Sometimes I felt the words catch or swell in my throat, and I sensations throughout my body as something was surfaced or released.
It was not just a physical experience though, it was a profoundly psychological and heartfelt one. At times, in sharing some difficult or important experience out loud, it felt as if my head had opened up and dense, dirty clouds were being emitted.
In every sense, it was often a cleansing and lightening process. And my therapist? She didn’t do anything other than listen - really, truly sit and listen to me with a quality of attention that I could feel.
We’ve probably all seen a scene in a film or TV show where someone finally blurts out something they’ve been holding on to like: “I can’t do this any more” or “I’m in love with you”.
These scenes (when done well) carry great emotional heft. We see and feel something profound is shifting within a person or several people, even though it is merely dialogue being played out between actors.
Someone talking without interruption, someone else listening without judgment. We undervalue the extraordinary power of this simple dynamic between people.
Words might be the observable expression that we can capture literally, but there is also a deeper release, a bodily surrender of what has been held on to or what has been silently screaming within us.
This can be healing or enlightening not only for the speaker but for those listening too. Most of the time, this humble act of honest sharing and listening is enough.
I have seen this in both the coaching room and in facilitating groups over and over. Most of the time, my role is not to say something wise but to create a space where there is real presence and attention from all of those present. The rest happens almost by itself.
Many years ago at a meditation retreat, the teacher introduced us to the four levels of listening in this Buddhist tradition. The first three were the ones most of us are typically aware of, ending with deep listening (albeit described in different terms). The fourth level though was described as “listening the other person into their own wisdom”.
It indicated a practice of listening where the quality of attention is so full, and the time is more kairos than chronos, that the person speaking would find their way to their own deep insights. It has stayed with me.
In groups, I have both witnessed and experienced this level of awareness forming. Sometimes it is explicit, a clear revelation or shift of perspective. Often, it is more subtle, an inner felt sense of a different level of awareness that cannot be immediately defined.
Why is this sort of expression so absent from our organisations, our relationships, our culture at large?
Busyness is surely part of it. The modern organisation, for example, has no time for this kind of patient listening without agenda or goal.
Our own modernist minds are colonised by what can be measured and tracked. We are locked into transactional dynamics with each other - debates, competing, solving problems, developing plans and taking action.
Our culture usually demands more rather than less. It leads us to believe that ‘progress’ even in relationships or personal healing, requires complex processes, models or frameworks for human encounters.
All we really need is the courage to speak truthfully and the capacity to listen with our whole being. It is simple yet it is hard.
Let us continue the practice.
“Quantum Listening is listening in as many ways as possible simultaneously – changing and being changed by the listening.”
— Pauline Oliveros
Tipping Point: navigating collapse and crisis.
“Maybe the culture is ready at this moment. Maybe that's what affluence finally does. People burn out how much they think they're going to get happiness through what they can buy and acquire. Either they do it directly or they do it vicariously because they look at the faces of their hero figures and they don't see happiness and contentment.”
An incredible lecture from 1987 that I return to often.
About me.
I’m a leadership coach, consultant and facilitator living in Berlin.
Contact me to:
Make sense of what’s going on with you, your work and your life through my coaching practice.
Make sense of what’s going on in your organisation through group dialogues, workshops and strategy sessions.
Understand your organisation and its culture as if it were a person, through The Human Organisation framework.
Have a real conversation.
At the heart of my work is helping individuals and organisations to figure out what is really going on.
You can also find out more about my work with men & masculinity here.