Actually Listening

We did an interesting exercise at a retreat I was at this past weekend, and if you could possibly attempt to replicate the idea of it, I would encourage you to give it a go.

You need someone else to do this with you. Each person gets x amount of time, we used two minutes, to talk on a given topic, and the other person is not allowed to comment at all. Then you switch who talks and who listens, but you have to talk about a different topic. As a listener, you're supposed to focus on what the other person is saying, rather than just thinking about what you can respond to, what your take on it is, or listening for the highlights that you can talk about next.

The speaker also goes through a unique experience. We are often used to have the person we talk to respond, comment, continue the story. The time period given has to be long enough to make the speaker elaborate past what she or he would ordinarily say. When we did this exercise, typically all the speakers would give a sentence or three answer about their childhood home, or the time they had to be their strongest, or what makes them laugh, and then you could hear a collective pause. This pause seemed to be at the moment when it is usually socially acceptable to stop talking and let someone else go. With another minute and a half to fill, the speakers would often recall more to the story, or tell of another incident, or somehow let the listener into a deeper part of their thinking.

At first it was very disorienting to talk to someone and not have them talk back. Most likely we look for a person's response as security that we know they were listening, instead of trusting that they are listening. You picked up more on small murmurs and body language. Then you realized more of your own stories that don't have as frequent an opportunity to come up in conversation. It reminded me of trying to talk to an elderly relative and then somehow hitting the right topic and finding this great story they had never told you.

This isn't a productive way to collaboratively expand on idea, unless I suppose you modified the game to let the listener keep notes, but didn't talk about those notes until much later. It is, however, an opportunity to communicate with someone in a way that we don't usually allow ourselves to do so. I might follow up on these thoughts later, but for now I'll just leave you with some food for thought on how we usually talk with each other.