mindful listening

In this episode of the Mindfulness series, I'm going to talk about mindful listening.

Listening to someone speaking is a great opportunity to practise mindfulness, especially if you are face to face with the person, either in a one to one conversation or in a small group of people. And listening mindfully brings great benefits. It allows a much closer sense of connection with the person who is speaking. And they will also feel that you are paying attention to them. They will sense it. So they also will feel seen, heard, respected. In this way, the connection between you and the other can become warmer, deeper, more meaningful.

And of course, there are usually many opportunities, every day, to listen to someone in a mindful way. So how do we listen mindfully? Of course, the key is to really pay attention to what the person is saying. It helps to look at them as they are speaking, if possible with eye contact, but in any case, watching their face as they speak.

And another key is to try to listen without too much interpretation. Of course, when someone is saying something, it's quite natural for it to trigger associations in our own mind, and we can very easily go off on our own train of thought, even whilst the other person is still speaking. So to listen mindfully, we have to guard against this. We have to watch out and catch ourself, if we start to think our own thoughts whilst the other person is talking.

Another tendency many of us have is to appraise, to evaluate, to judge what the other person is saying. It's as if we are suspicious and we are trying to decide, are they speaking the truth? Are they saying something that is good or bad? Do I agree with it or disagree with it? What do I think of this person, how do I rate them because of what they are saying? All of this judgemental activity in our own mind gets in the way of us really listening attentively to what the person is saying.

We can allow ourselves to feel a sort of emotional response or an instinctive gut reaction to what the person is saying. We can notice that, at the same time as listening. However, we don't have to convert that into words in our own head. We don't have to start labelling the person as good or bad, friend or foe.

A related characteristic of mindful listening is to be open, have an open attitude towards the other person. And that really means not being obsessed with our own beliefs, with our own conclusions. In a way, it means being interested in what the person has to say, interested in their perspective on life. It's true for them, even if it's not our perspective. And it is interesting to see that different people have different perspectives, have different things to say. It really enriches life, that we are not all identical in our beliefs and in our understandings of the world.

So it's great to listen with this attitude of curiosity. What is this person really saying? Do I allow myself to feel it? And if we are really open when we are listening, we will find that we naturally have an empathy with the person who is speaking. And this empathy is again an indication of a connection, an energetic, an emotional connection. And this is really relating. This is how two people can really be connected in the moment. It doesn't mean that you have to be in an ongoing relationship with this person. However, in this moment, the two of you can have this feeling of connectedness, of togetherness. And it's very nurturing. It's very healing, both for yourself and for the other.

So these are a few comments about mindful listening. You can practise this in any situation where some somebody is talking to you. It might be a stranger chatting at the bus stop, or it might be an intimate partner that you have known for years. In either case, listening mindfully will bring great benefits. It will undermine any sense of isolation that you might feel or that the other person might feel. This sense of connection is very valuable. And it's much more important in a way than just being right. When we're not listening mindfully, in an open way, it's usually because we are more interested in our own opinion and in having a sense of righteousness. We tend to value our own beliefs above this human connection. And that's sad. It means our beliefs are separating us and keeping us in a sense of isolation.

So try listening mindfully whenever the opportunity arises. And the more we practise in this way, the easier it becomes, and the more mindful we will be throughout the day, in other situations, too. Enough for now.