Truly listening to one other has become a rare commodity. Yet, 'deep listening' is a crucial key to moving beyond polarization towards harmony. Did you know that there are multiple levels of listening that can help you? But what are they, and what does each level give you and others? As an individual or in a team at work, but also in life together as people and nations? The benefits are enormous. Just take a look.
Listening to yourself is essential. But not if it comes at the expense of effectively listening to others. When that happens you don't build bridges of connection and true harmony. And it is precisely the latter that often proves to be neglected in practice, due to listening too much or only to yourself. That is why the focus of this article is on listening to others.
Deep listening means being able and willing to listen effectively to others at the following four levels: luisteren naar de ander:
© 2022: Model for Spirited Personal Leadership from the book of the same name (author: Martin Thoolen)
At every level of listening, there are pitfalls that you can unknowingly fall into, but also solutions to overcome them. This paves the way to achieving harmony with each other. Before I explain this, I'll first show you what deep listening gives you and what it requires of you.
Do you know that feeling when you don't feel heard or seen by someone? Whether it's your boss, colleague, or partner. Pretty annoying, right? Then you also know how important it is for someone else to truly listen to you.
If you expect that from someone else, why wouldn't you do the same for them? Because if you just wait for your turn to be heard and then you don’t listen to what the other has to say, you perpetuate polarization and the divide between you and the other person.
So, if you do truly listen to others, you come closer together. Mutual understanding is then more likely to arise. Then there will be no more heavy hearts, but relief and relaxation and (renewed) trust and harmony can arise. At every level: with your family, relatives, or neighbors. With your employees, stakeholders, and managers. With each other as people.
But that doesn't happen automatically. It demands something from you, but it also yields a great deal.
If you don't do this, you're more likely to perpetuate attitudes or to reinforce polarization with others. It's just like driving a car. Someone starts tailgating. They've started, but what do you actually do now? Slow down; brake; stay in front of the tailgater longer than necessary; give the middle finger; roll down the window and yell; run them off the road?
You are 100% responsible for absolutely all your own thoughts and behavior, regardless of what anyone else does.
“You are 100% responsible for absolutely all your own thoughts and behavior, regardless of what anyone else does.”
If you are ready and willing to do what is asked of you, the heavens can open for you
As mentioned, there are four levels of listening, from superficial to deep, each with its own pitfalls and solutions.
Listening starts with being silent and listening to the other person. And that can sometimes be quite difficult when you are emotional, feeling hurt, or wanting to get your point across. What helps with this is to be aware of the amount of time you are speaking during the conversation with someone. How much space do you actually give the other person? How often do you pause? How often do you invite the other person instead of telling your own story
Also pay attention to "coat-hanger" behavior. This is when you listen to someone and they say something you recognize, something you're touched by, or something you wanted to say yourself. Before you know it, you're attaching your own story to the other person's story, to their coat-hanger. And listening is gone, and you leave the other person out in the cold.
A slightly deeper level of listening arises when you show the other person that you're understanding them, also called "active listening." A basic communication skill for which I gave dozens of training sessions in the first years of my career. Nonverbally, you remain silent and give the other person space, nodding or humming positively, encouraging them to continue talking. And your posture expresses engagement with the other person. Verbally, you ask open-ended questions, probe to learn more about the other person's motivations, and provide periodical questioning summaries of what you thought you understood them to be saying. This makes the other person feel heard more quickly.
It's essential to carefully observe the other person's nonverbal signals and ask further questions, as these often reveal their true feelings. If someone frowns and says, "Fine," ask why. If someone angrily says, "Okay then," comment, "You sound a bit angry. Do you really want to do that?" This will help you get to the heart of the matter.
Research shows that 7% of verbal communication is determined by words, 35% by tone, and 55% by all remaining nonverbal cues. So avoid emails and apps where these signals can easily slip by, but pick up the phone or visit each other to achieve harmony.
"Avoid emails and apps, but pick up the phone or visit each other to achieve harmony."
Active listening only truly brings harmony when it's delivered authentically and with genuine interest. A pitfall here is that your listening may be biased and you don't truly respect the other person's words. You might also listen in a socially acceptable way or use polite and superficial terms when you don't actually want to hear the other person.
Open listening is sabotaged when your ego unknowingly takes over. It is the "I" with which you identify.
For example, if you strongly identify with a religion and elevate yours as better or more beneficial than another, you exclude the other. For example, I was recently surprised by a friend of mine who, as a Christian, completely dismissed all the deaths and atrocities in Gaza by the Israeli regime as media lies. The Good Samaritan was momentarily lost. Open listening was also momentarily lost.
A major challenge also arises when dealing with cultural differences. Over-identification with your own cultural characteristics and behaviors often throws a wrench in the works and can cost business relationships millions. Professor Fons Trompenaars explains this in detail and scientifically in his research and books. Transcending these dilemmas is achieved, among other things, by integrating that other culture into your own! Become partly Chinese when in contact with Chinese people. And these bridges connect you with others.
When your own ego is compromised, ego filters arise that block deep listening and harmony. For example, when someone else's words don't suit you, when you disagree with something, or when it doesn't seem to add value. Truly listening then goes against your own self-interest, which in turn governs your thinking.
"Truly listening goes against my own self-interest."
According to the founders of "The Psychology of Selves & Voice Dialogue" (Hal & Sidra Stone), whom I trained with in the USA, you can also view your own ego as an interplay of subpersonalities. In other words, like a bus that is (usually unconsciously) driven by your own ego passengers. If certain ego passengers strongly take over, you can use your existing skills all you want, but it won't work.
If your inner pusher takes the wheel, a tsunami of words can arise, taking up the other person's space. When your "instinctive side," as your ego passenger unconsciously takes over you will express yourself either verbally and passively, or actively and aggressively. You make comments like, "You should throw that into the toilet." When your "inner judge" is in charge, you form negative judgments about what the other person says or what you think they've said, and your listening becomes biased. As I recently experienced with someone who told me I'd made a very stupid choice. And his open listening was gone. When your "inner patriarch" drives you, you openly or secretly place yourself above the other person. As a listener, you internally dismiss the other person's words as less true or important than your own thoughts and words. Functionally "wisdom" then becomes stubbornness, and this crippling insistence creates distance.
In all these cases, there's often a false self-image. Beneath the surface, the other conversation partner, who can be listened to at those moments, often doesn't sense genuine willingness on your part. This also results in others no longer giving you genuine and honest feedback (even if you've politely asked for it). They think it's pointless anyway, and you're seen as too stubborn and not truly open.
As a listener, you often don't see the influence of your own ego because it plays out beneath the surface. Let alone admit it has an influence at all. So you've already taken a giant step toward true harmony if you recognize and, above all, acknowledge this influence within yourself. Are you willing to accept your own ego being hurt? If you have the courage to openly acknowledge this, you build a bridge of genuine connection with the other person.
What you can then do is self-regulate by inviting the opposite ego within you to sit at the table with the other person. A lot can often change when you stop letting your "pusher, instinctive, judger, and patriarch" speak for a good percentage of the time, and instead invite the other ego passengers on your ego bus into the conversation and your listening style. Think of your "inner pleaser," who genuinely listens to others and can truly empathize. Or your "being" side, which can quietly allow the other person to be fully present. Further development through the method of "Voice Dialogue" can systematically yield miracles of connection with others.
If we want to listen even deeper, we arrive at our soul. The "real, true self" within us. This is where we connect deeply, openly, powerfully, and vulnerably with others. We can meet another’s soul and give space to their right to exist, rather than focusing primarily on ourselves. When this happens, we truly allow what the other person says to sink in and can be genuinely moved ourselves; we listen intently. The other person feels safe to share their entire being with us. They feel truly heard and it is a balm for the soul.
A pitfall is being deeply affected by what the other person says or does, or has done or said. Especially if what you hear is unpleasant. From your own wounded soul, you then lash out, or shut down and put on a socially acceptable show. As a result, you keep thinking about the disappointment the other person seems to have caused you, and it continues to resonate within you. True connection and trust are then absent, because you haven't yet healed your own soul pain (of not being heard or seen yourself).
A second pitfall I sometimes fall into myself is that of the over-inspired soul: too passionate, too enthusiastic, too full of energy. You can become so absorbed in the soulful contact that you miss the other person's signals. For example, during an "Inner Nature" retreat in the Ardennes that I led, I was so engrossed in my story that I forgot I was going on too long and didn't notice people yawning. I had stopped listening to my participants.
When inspiration merges with ego-identifications, it can take destructive forms. You can lose yourself in your own fierceness, righteousness, or belief. Then you really are no longer open to listening to the other. The rigid blinders you wear narrow your view of them. You don't even really want to hear or face the other person's facts. You downplay or easily dismiss advice and sincere feedback from others. You then 'think' at those moments that 'other people' too readily follow advice from others and supposedly betray their own soul and authority, but surely you don't. From this illusion, you rush ahead with your own unshakeable faith, supposed inner strength, and 'false' authority, which destroys more relationships than many of us would care to see.
How can you optimally use your soul to listen more deeply to others? If you are aware of the pitfalls mentioned, you have won half the battle. Dare to admit that you have temporarily let yourself go too much and then, or later, give space to the other person. Ask the other person what truly moves them, truly motivates them, and what they actually think about something.
The soul often speaks more readily when you use the following words: loved, genuine, pure, essential, truly, really, original, natural. Ask about the deeper longing that lies dormant within someone, the emotional pain they've been carrying for a while, or the original talents and dreams they long to pursue, and you'll have a conversation where heart and soul are fully expressed.
There is an even deeper and more expansive dimension from which you can listen to others. That is the universal consciousness and the creative source from which everything originates and flows, which you could also call "spirit." Sounds vague, doesn't it? Until you realize that listening from this dimension is characterized by several very concrete qualities. Let me mention a few that you can put to work immediately.
Listening from spirit transcends listening from an unconscious ego and a wounded soul. At this level, you are aware of the impact of your own hurt, pain, and ego that drive your behavior as a listener. You are then freer not to project your own unresolved issues onto the other person. You don't react out of frustration just because your own expectations haven't been met by the speaker. You simply observe and see the consequences, without any judgment of the other person or yourself.
The speaker opposite you energetically senses that you are "clean inside," allowing the heavens to open up in the contact.
When you, as a listener, listen to the other person from spirit, there are no hidden agendas or secrets. There is no fear, shame, or guilt about losing anything in the connection with the other. There is complete transparency in the exchange of words and energy with the other. You listen from a childlike innocence that creates space and trust to face and express all aspects of light and shadow. Like confession in church, where—if all goes well—the listener listens like that. And then the speaker walks out the door with a palpable sense of relief when everything that was troubling them has been discussed. As if a dark cloud has lifted and the sun has started to shine within.
You achieve this clarity and impact as a listener when you thoroughly understand and are open to your own light and shadow aspects.
Spirit excludes nothing, because everything originates from there and returns to it. Only ego creates exclusion. From this position, the listener feels the freedom to be completely themselves, which brings much more essential information to the table.
"Only ego creates exclusion"
Spirit knows no overt or covert hierarchy. It doesn't know a pyramid structure like an ego-matrix with people at the top. No, it puts an end to that irrevocably. As a listener, you don't take over the conversation to share your own so-called important knowledge. As a listener, you place yourself at the service of the other person's story. Regardless of experience, background, education level, or anything else, as a listener, you look solely at 'the person' sitting across from you. This sincere attitude opens doors in contact with the other person.
"Spirit knows no hierarchy"
At this level, there is no judgment of others in your thoughts or (verbal) behavior. There is no emotional charge of fierceness, cynicism, or anything else. You listen with "Spock ears", occasionally interjecting the word "fascinating." From an inquisitive mind that wants to know and learn more, you ask further questions out of curiosity. Not only is your sincere interest as a listener appreciated by the speaker, it also demonstrates that you genuinely want to understand their underlying motivations, to truly understand the other person, which often leads to greater harmony.
Even if you, as a listener, disagree with the other person, you remain genuinely friendly (not in a socially acceptable way, but connected to your heart, sincerely). As Barack Obama demonstrated when he received a fierce reaction from the audience behind him. Instead of continuing his speech, he turned around. Not to respond with a fierce reaction, as you sometimes see, but he said: "You are passionate and are concerned that my plans might harm you." As a listener, he built a bridge instead of a wall with the other person.
"Spirit knows no walls"
Spirit primarily listens to the energy from which something can be heard, not so much the temporary form in which it resides. That's why you can listen to people, but what about birds? Imagine there were no birds at all on this earth. Just imagine it for a minute. There's so much more to listen to. Many indigenous people I've visited on my travels therefore talk about listening to the heart of Mother Earth and her rhythm. Through drumming ceremonies, they often experience a deep connection. From this comes a deep respect for the Earth, which, as its temporary host, makes life here possible for you. Something many of us have simply forgotten.
Spirit also reveals itself in your listening when intuition is given space. As I experienced during a recent coaching session where a Senior Researcher at a Ministry expressed his desire to ultimately work with animals. Before this even came up, I shared that I kept getting images of cats and other animals from her. She was completely "on." Immediately afterward, I conducted a voice dialogue session where we spoke to the part of her that was the animal lover. She was standing by the balcony with an open door, and literally at that moment, a pigeon flew in and sat at her feet, 2 feet away, for three minutes. What a cosmic wink. After all, from a spiritual perspective, everything is connected to everything else, it’s just that we don't always see it.
You've seen that there are four dimensions of deep listening, each with their own pitfalls and solutions. If you are truly willing to focus solely and continuously on yourself as a listener and really listen to others, harmony will be at your doorstep.
However, listening requires the other person to be present. Due to excessive ego or a wounded soul, the other person may not (yet) be ready to engage in dialogue with you. Let things flow, always keep the door ajar, and invite even if your outstretched hand isn't always accepted. Everyone has their own pace of development. Then focus on others who have the courage to do so, and thus create harmony with those who are willing and able. The world around you will become much more beautiful.
"The deeper you listen, the more beautiful it becomes."
Try "deep listening" more often. Don't do it as a one-time act, but see it as a process where you can grow at an increasingly deeper level and truly connect with each other.
Above all, I wish you much joy in this journey of discovery and the beauty that can come to you as a listener.
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