How a closed mouth and an open heart may help your conversations

Sometimes I can’t help but feel that we are all great at giving unwanted advice — and terrible at listening.

I am a former advice-giver known for my strong opinions and matter-of-fact thinking. But a workshop entitled ‘Deep Listening’ brought my awareness to the art of keeping my mouth shut when people express themselves to me.

Deep Listening is an act of opening yourself up to absorb the words and feelings that another person chooses to share with you, without thinking about the grocery list, the colour of their hair, or your upcoming response.

Practicing deep listening was awkward at first. In fact, friends who called for a vent expecting my usual soliloquy of unsolicited advice began asking if I was mad at them or uninterested in the conversation when I didn’t offer up a monologue in response to their woes. I questioned if deep listening was worth it.

Around the same time, my meditation practice built up. I started noticing that I had less and less to say; That I was growing tired of thinking up responses and solutions to everyone else’s problems and I began to understand that there was another way to support my friends. Empathy, although wordless, can be a deeply felt experience. Over time, listening became easy and the pressure to respond became less. When I did speak, my responses became intentional, more sophisticated. I began giving less advice and found that people were perfectly capable of solving their own problems, especially when we get out of their way.

Most conversations are intellectual banter and there’s nothing wrong with this. But the silence offered up when we are engaged in Deep Listening expands our experience. It allows us to go deeper into something called the felt experience. This is different from the intellectualised experience in that it’s something we embody, not something we conjure up with the mind. It’s the difference between thinking of the solution to, or judging, a friend’s conversation, and empathising with them by giving them our full-bodied attention. It allows us to be present with ourselves and each other, and it encourages authenticity and accountability.

The warm silence offered up by a moment of deep listening enhances the felt experience. It makes room for important speech. It emphasises wise words that are otherwise drowned out by the noise of incessant talking and advice-giving.

In a world where everyone has something to say, something to sell, something to prove and something to share, deep listening is a sacred skill. Do you practice it?