"Two ears listening-- together form a heart."
Jennifer Piercy
To listen is to love.
Listening requires momentary dismissal of the self. A quieting of the ego. A grander concern for the person to whom we listen.
Roman Krznaric, in his book Empathy, recognizes that the world is in a conversation crisis and that conversation "...is one of the essential ways in which we come to understand the inner emotional life and ideas of others." In my interpretation, conversation makes the world go round--smoothly. He also suggests that connecting to other people requires empathy and that highly empathic people share traits that create conversation.
One of the traits is radical listening. I believe he's coined it radical because it is a departure from normal listening. It requires radical behavior, for normal listening is half listening; it's waiting to interject our opinion or experience. Radical listening requires just that: listening wholeheartedly without wanting to interrupt, redirect, or set the listener straight.
The obstacles to radical listening are, 1. a tendency to become combative in a tense conversation. 2. a tendency to one-up the person speaking, so if they are telling the listener about a difficult in-law, the listener interrupts and tells about his more difficult in-law.
So how do we stuff off the snake skin of poor-listening?
Try to picture being stranded on a remote island with a weak-receiving radio. From the radio will come the communication from an approaching sea vessel. To hear above the static and the weak signal, requires leaning in close and avoiding distractions. The listener is present and attuned. Rescue and life are at stake.
So it is with radical listening. We are attuned as if rescue depends upon it.
Maybe it does.
Two ears, one heart.
Proper listening is the foundation of proper living.
Plutarch
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