Episode 10: The Lost Art Of Empathetic Listening
Transcript:
Welcome to my podcast, asking the question, if not now, when? This is Cindie Brown and thank you for joining me today. For more information, visit me at www.ifnotnowwhen.best.
There are moments in our history where real change happens. As a society we can legislate change but real change happens in the hearts and minds of it's citizens and I think that happens when we listen to understand the "other". When we do, we become a better society. A better society in my mind is a more compassionate, empathetic, kind and just society for all if it's citizens.
This episode has morphed into something different than originally intended. Originally it was going to be about racism in America, the African American experience and policing in America. Ironically, I am not African American and I have never talked to a police officer other than explaining why I was driving so fast and one isolated incident when I had a young African American male in my car where we were stopped in a no parking spot. That experience that happened five years ago and is etched in my mind and had validated the images about police we see on TV. It became the motivation for the episode I recorded. As I prepared for that episode, I talked to my white friends and by black friends to get a feel for how they felt about the topic. Then, being that I had never spoken to a police officer I decided that would be an important thing to do so I started talking to police officers, first time in my life, and listening to their experiences that I had never heard learning what it's like to be as a police officer. One of the goals of the officers was to stay alive and to be able to go home to their families. The more I talked to people the more I learned just how diverse our vision of ourselves, our communities and country is seeing everything from such different lenses based on our lived experiences. I'm so glad I did this because it was such an eye opening experience. All opinions I heard were just as real, all just as passionate and logical in everyone's eyes, but different. I think we all know this but, it certainly brought to light how different everyone's reality is as we have national conversations not only about racism in America or about policing but everything. Because any topic is seen through that personal lens. In my mind, that's not a bad thing because we do need diverse thought in our society. Through this process I realized it's not diverse thought that hurts us. It's that we are not diverse in our ability to listen empathically and embrace other concepts and ideas. We hang on so tightly to our belief systems that it's hard for our hearts to open up to any other idea. But I think once we do have those conversations and hear the plight of the "other", progress is made. So I came to the conclusion that having a conversation about empathetic listening would be valuable.
I'm also well aware the odds are stacked against us. We naturally want to listen to people who validate our belief system and with every "like" clicked on, we build algorithms that take us further down our own rabbit hole of beliefs isolating us even further from varied ideas and thoughts. Real conversations with people that think differently than us are avoided at all cost, again isolating us in our beliefs and this huge valley between us is expanding. When we do see opposing ideas discussed on TV, many times I see two things happening, journalist asking questions to enhance their own agenda or asking loaded questions, which aren’t really questions to enhance understanding but rather to encourage argument with hopes of increased viewership. I think the other challenge we face that didn't exist in prior generations is getting our information in sound bits with emotionally charged words. We tend to think very fast and we tend to be very reactive to those words. It makes me wonder how that's impacted our ability to listen empathetically. I think sometimes we instead make a judgment or interpret the information based on our lens that moves us further towards our limited point of view. What we listen to and how we spend our energy is shaping our society from the inside out. When we give our time and energy and focus on negative posts, tweets and publicity stunts, I believe our energy is focused in the wrong direction. Instead our energy should be directed towards moving us forward as a society.
We have all heard the phrase, "Seek to understand before being understood". I want to share with you some very meaningful ideas and thoughts on the topic of empathetic listening that can make a difference in our personal and public discourse moving us in a direction I believe most desired. One of compassion, empathy, kindness and justice.
The most beautiful definition of empathetic listening I've heard was during an interview with Krista Tippet at Google. Here's how she described it: "Listening is not primarily about being quiet, it's primarily about being present. The gift of giving our presence to each other is as urgent as it has ever been. It's meeting others with the life we've lived, not just with questions. Empathetic listening is generosity. It involves a kind of vulnerability— a willingness to be surprised, to let go of assumptions and take in ambiguity. The listener wants to understand the humanity behind the words of the other, and patiently summons one’s own best self and one’s own best words and questions." To be an empathetic listener you also have to muster within yourself a real curiosity to bring that kind of generosity to bear. You can't fake that kind of curiosity. It's a muscle that has withered and one we need to flex so it starts to become instinct. Listening is hard work and it can be elevated to an art form."
Wow! If you can just let that thought marinate for a minute. Can you imagine a world where we gave that gift of generosity, that gift of presence when they were talking?
An example of giving the gift of listening is what I have heard about Mary Kay. She's the owner of the cosmetic company that gives pink Cadillacs away. I heard she would be in a crowded room but if she was talking with you, she would give you 100% attention and made you feel you were the only person in the room. Giving that feeling to someone, that gift, brings out the best in them and develops trust. When you give the feeling to the person you are listening to that "they get me". They relax and you allow them to express themselves more fully.
Krista also explains, looking for the good in the other is about the art of asking better questions rather than positioning questions as tools or weapons to incite or corner or catch instead of what will really elicit valuable conversation. There is an opening with a generous question. When asked a harsh question it's hard to give generous answer. And the opposite is true.
I'm sure most of us, I know I have been in a situation where we are just so passionate about our point of view and we really, really want the other person to understand that. So we try and push our idea through we kind of bulldoze through the conversation in hopes that the person we are talking to will understand and eventually agree with us. But that approach, I can't help but think of one of my favorite parables where a man is walking through this field and the sun and the wind begin to argue about who can get the man to take off his jacket first. So finally the sun says go ahead wind, you start first and see what you can do. So the wind blew and blew as hard as he possibly could and the harder the wind blew the tighter the man held on to his jacket. Finally when the wind was exhausted the sun said, "well are you done?". And then the sun came out peacefully and as the sun warmed the field the man peacefully took off his jacket. It's one of my favorite parables and I use it frequently because at times really that pushing is what makes that other person more defensive and hang tight onto their jacket and it's so relevant in this conversation. Instead of trying to push our idea, we try listening generously. Give that gift to the other person. When we do that we build that trust, we build that relationship, we build that understanding. And then that person, even though they may not agree, but you've allowed them to listen with an open heart. Defense is down.
I also feel the concept of intention behind our questions and inquiry is key. You can't fake it. When you're generous and vulnerable you encourage the other person to respond in kind. It's a deep place that you hold for them to automatically share and open up.
This is a bit off topic but relates to empathetic listening and what that would look like in our police departments since this is something we are focusing on as a society.
A guest, Krista Tippet had on her podcast in 2016 was Thich Nhat Hanh. BTW, It's pretty obvious, I am huge fan of Krista Tippet. I love Krista's style of interviewing. I've listened to her podcast for years. She explores human connection, spiritual inquiry, and social healing. She's on NPR on Sunday mornings hosting her radio show On Being. She is an American journalist, author, entrepreneur and a recipient of the George Foster Peabody Award and the National Humanities Medal. I'll never forget the day I heard this specific interview on her podcast. I was on a work trip driving from Nashville to Memphis on that long lonely road. And this episode is just as relevant today as it was in 2016 when I heard it. I'll share that interview link with you in the show notes. It really is a wonderful example of what is possible with policing in America and at it's core is, empathetic listening. If we can envision something different we can give energy to that.
So Thich Nhat Hanh is a soft spoke man from Vietnam. "He first came to the world’s attention in the 60's during the war in Vietnam. He forsook monastic isolation to care for the victims of that war and to work for reconciliation among all the warring parties. He called this “engaged Buddhism.” And in 1969, Thich Nhat Hanh led the Buddhist delegation to the Paris Peace Talks. He was expelled from post-war Vietnam because he had refused to take sides even as he worked for peace. He settled in exile France. And there, he founded Plum Village, a Buddhist community that has spawned communities of practice and service all over the world. In recent years, Thich Nhat Hanh’s counsel has been sought by CEO’s at the World Economic Forum, Harvard Medical School faculty, and even members of the United States Congress."
Listening to this episode really shed light on what's possible. Cheri Maples was part of this conversation. She served in the criminal justice system for 25 years, including as an Assistant Attorney General in the Wisconsin Department of Justice, and as a police officer and captain with the City of Madison Police Department. She's a licensed attorney, a clinical social worker, and co-founder of the Center for Mindfulness and Justice in Madison, Wisconsin.
She explains, her first retreat with him in the early 90's. She says as a person who carries a gun for a living, she thought she would listen to this, but knew she couldn't apply it. One of the attendees pulled her aside and said. "Who else would we want to carry a gun except somebody who will do it mindfully? As she learned, she started to understand that it is possible to bring this into our work as police. She said her heart started to soften for the first time. She had gotten very mechanical about how she was doing her job and had no idea that she had shut down that way. "When I came home and, especially that first week when it was so new and everything felt so fresh, that I started to understand, on a very deep, deep level, that it’s possible to bring this into your work as a cop. "As my energy started to change, the energy that I got back from other people started to change, even the people I had to arrest and take to jail."
Then she proceeded to tell a story about being on a domestic violence call. She said it was one of those calls where I would have normally just arrested the guy. The scenario was the couple was breaking up, emotions were high and they had a little girl with custody issues. The father was kind of holding the little girl hostage, not wanting to give her back to Mom. There hadn't been any violence reported but both Mom and the little girl were very scared and intimidated. Cheri said ordinarily she would have just slapped on the handcuffs and taken him to jail. But something stopped her. She had just come back from that retreat. She was able to talk him into giving the little girl back to her Mom and then she told the Mom to leave. She just sat down, asked questions, and just listened to this guy from her heart, and within five minutes this 6'6" brawling big guy started crying and gave her a big hug. She said that’s when I started realizing we deal with misplaced anger because people are in incredible pain. A couple days later when she was off duty she ran into him in a store and he came up to her and gave her a big hug and thanked her and told her that she literally saved his life. She said when you have experiences like that, you start to realize, it’s all about softening your heart. When you're a police officer and you do this work, you need to find a way to be able to maintain both compassion within and the fierce officer and know when each is called for and how to combine the two. This is a learned skill.
As the captain of the police department, she helped with training and incorporating these principles in her department. She said at first you can imagine, it was a mini revolt.
So she's definitely an advocate of Thich Nhat Hanh’s tools and skills to help keep your heart open and soft working in that environment. She said we have to remain human in order to be able to understand and to be compassionate. I wanted to share her story and what she's learned from Thich Nhat Hanh and how she worked to transform her police department as an example of what's possible.
I will leave you with another quote from Krista. "The beginning of the quarantine sent us all inside and sent many of us inside spiritually as well. A time of self reflection. "Repairing the world is the highest human calling but you start with what you can see and touch." Focusing our conversational questions on how and why rather than who and what will move us in a better direction. She says "We want the full array of humanity in the room to have its place." At times we walk into the room or discussion with deep profound differences that are meaningful and important to us. The point is not agreeing. The point is getting into a relationship. And letting what we disagree on define what is possible between opening up a new space where perhaps what we have in common are our questions. The point is, coming to know each other to be able to address the deep questions about how we are all going to live. As we look at our society, the question of who will we be to each other is at the heart of where we find ourselves today. To answer that questions will depend on our ability to listen."
I hope you found value in this episode today. My goal is to share as much useful and inspiring information to help you make better choices to enhance the quality of our lives and the lives of our families and friends. And I'd love or you to join our community by logging on to www.ifnotnowwhen.best That way I can give you updates on new episodes, show notes and discount codes.
I'm so grateful for you joining me today. Wishing you peace, love and joy. Goodbye for now.
References:
Podcast On Being Episode with Thich Nhat Hana: https://onbeing.org/programs/thich-nhat-hanh-cheri-maples-larry-ward-being-peace-in-a-world-of-trauma/#transcript>
Today on episode 88 of The Quarantine Tapes, Paul Holdengräber and journalist and author Krista Tippett
The Quarantine Tapes, Paul Holdengraber and journalist and author Krista Tippett: <https://lithub.com/krista-tippett-who-will-we-be-to-each-other-after-the-crisis/?fbclid=IwAR0Fj60O1EAGcvfjk-gI4bB1zt7rnHPvSCb3axNQ21lDTey605bmmTheHmc>
From <https://fs.blog/2017/01/krista-tippett-listening-questions/>
Resources:
Boost your immunity with better sleep with the ChiliPAD. It is the one purchase I have made that has made the biggest impact on the quality of my life with a huge jump in my deep regenerative sleep keeping me cool all night.
Please use this link to learn more about and purchase the ChiliPAD - https://trk.chilitechnology.com/SH3V
Discount Codes exclusively for my listeners:
Use - BEGIN15 for 15% off OOLER
Use - BEGIN25 for 25% off chiliPAD
