JUST Listening:

Transformative Communication Training

Opportunity, Inc.s FTGU Fall 2014
Thurs., October 30, 2014
Outline
Overview

Considerations for Dissolving Barriers to Communication
Listening Filters
Contents of our own Minds
Socio-Cultural Filters
Ego and Behavioral Blocks
to Listening/Understanding

Listening Practice

Strategic Questioning:
Asking The Best Question
Personal and Social
Transformation
Listening to Another Inner Listening

JUST Listening
Justice:
One definition of Justice is Right
Relationship
Fairness, equality, respect, inherent dignity of every person
Listening itself is an act of Justice
What is the consequence of being
listened toor not?
Listening is a magnetic and
strange thing, a creative
force. When we are
listened to, it creates us,
makes us unfold and
expand. Ideas actually
begin to grow within us
and come to life. Brenda Ueland
Creativity, Empowerment
What Happens when you are listened to?
Listening is the oldest and perhaps
most powerful tool of healing.
Our listening creates sanctuary for the
homeless parts within the other
person. Rachel Naomi Remen
Evolutionary Considerations
heart rate, breathing, temperature, balance
Emotions, old learning, habits,
Unconscious value judgments
Language, abstract thought
Imagination, consciousness
Near-infinite learning abilities
Consciousness: Waking Up

Being Intentional



Being Intentional
Physiological Effects of Stress
Triggers:
Sympathetic Nervous System

Where we would rather be most of
the time:
Parasympathetic Nervous system (PSNS)
Effects of Stress
Elevated blood pressure
Shut down of some neural circuits
Less likely to be open, flexible,
creative
Read: Why Zebras Dont Get Ulcers,
Robert M. Saplosky
More Effects of Stress
Corticosteroids:
Impairment of immune system:
disease
Death of some neurons
Impaired capacity to learn
Loss of creativity
Increased anxiety and depression
Increased sense of loss of
control, perception of threat,
negative beliefs/conclusions

Parasympathetic System
(where reflection/mindfulness takes us)
Creativity
Enthusiasm
Positivity
Innovation
(Enhanced
Problem Solving)
Well Being
Happiness/
Even Joy
Continuous Partial Attention
Multitasking:
The Research*
Faster behaviors
Those who multitask most are those
least able to do so
Poor at sorting out irrelevancy
Worse at switching between tasks
Worse memory retention
Research: is multitasking deteriorating
these capacities in the brain?
*Based on the work of Clifford Nass, Stanford, Communication Between Human
and Interactive Media Lab, and Gary Small UCLA, ibrain: Surviving the Technological
Alteration of the Modern Mind
Your Thoughts? Questions?
Shifting the Listening Paradigm

How Do We Do It?

Active Listening.one of many listening modalities
Encouraging

Restating

Reflecting

Summarizing
Listening Filters
1. The Content of Our Own Minds



2. Socio-cultural filters


3. Our Egos



Content of our own Minds
What IS the content of your thought?
Notice your own thoughts: Discuss :
why is it important for you to be here
tonight?


The Process:
Examine Your Internal Monologue:
What goes on in your head?
Thinking of the rest of your to-do list
Thinking of what to say in response
Thinking of a solution
Thinking of why the other person is wrong
Thinking about a similar thing that
happened to you
Thinking about what you have to do next
Worrying about your problems
Worrying about 3,000 things that might
happen

What To Do?

Be Aware

Conscious



Present

Intentional
Socio-Cultural Filters
*Based on the work of:
Nancy Boyd-Franklin, Nancy. Black Families in Therapy: Understanding the African American Experience.
Monica McGoldrick, Joe Giordano, and Nydia Garcia-Preto, editors. Ethnicity and Family Therapy, 3rd Edition.
Deborah Tannen, You Just Dont Understand: Women and Men In Conversation, and Talking Nine To Five: Women and Men at
Work
Susan Bryant, The Five Habits: Building Cross Cultural Competence in Lawyers 8 Clinical Law Review 37 2001-2002

And others.
Filters, continued.
Age
Gender
Class
Ethnicity
E
G
O
Religion
Education
(Bias)
Listening Filters

Culture and Custom

Non-verbals

Biases/Prejudices/
Assumptions

See Project Implicit:
https://implicit.harvard.edu
/implicit

Prior Experience,
including Knowledge
This includes
knowledge/skills/
expertise/beliefs.
Remember, everyone
has their own
experience and skill.



For example..
Non verbals: What is your
assumption about what these
signify?
Eg.
Nodding?
Eye contact?

Socio-Cultural Rules and Norms
Hidden Assumptions about:
possessions
money
time
education
language
world view
personality
motivations
gender roles
family

Enormous variation in norms and beliefs

Socio-Cultural Conversational Dynamics


The Role of Story
The Structure of
Conversation


The Role of Language
Formal and casual speech
Context: Custom and Belief

What Dynamics Have You Noticed?
Tolerance, or Celebration?
Four Helpful Attitudes/Behaviors
1. Not Knowing

2. Genuine Curiosity

3. Awareness of Personal and Socio-
Cultural Filters

4. Focus on EXPERIENCE, not beliefs,
convictions

What To Do????


Know that you do not know.
Be CONSCIOUS of this.


Engage in
generous interpretation
of client behavior:
adopt parallel universe* thinking


Bryant, Susan. The Five Habits: Building Cross Cultural Competence in Lawyers 8 Clinical Law Review 37 2001-
2002



Respond with Strategic
Questions, not statements.

If you cant think of anything
to say, dont say anything!
Experiment with silence.


It is not speaking
that breaks our
silence, but the
anxiety to be
heard.

Thomas Merton
IMPEDIMENTS TO LISTENING:
UNCONSCIOUS MANIFESTATIONS OF
EGO
Considerations for JUST Listening
Adapted from Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
EGO
Ego: noun

1. the self

2. an inflated sense of self-
significance
Desiring, seeking, or
demanding
recognition for
something you did
Being angry, upset,
disgruntled, or holding
on if you dont get it

Trying to get attention
by talking about
yourself, your
experiences, your
issues etc.

Giving your opinion
when nobody has
asked for it and it
makes no difference
to the situation
Taking things
personally, feeling
offended

Making yourself right
and others wrong
through futile mental
or verbal complaining,
gymnastics,
explaining.

Wanting to be seen,
or appear important.
Bragging, self-
aggrandizing speech
Exaggerating/inflating
accomplishments
Belittling others, actions
that diminish, demean,
or are meant to
embarrass others
Being more concerned with
how the other person sees
you than with the other
person

Trying to make an
impression on others
through knowledge, status,
physical strength,
possessions, good looks,
etc. For some, boasting of
the OPPOSITE, e.g. a
simple lifestyle, lack of
possessions, lack of a
privileged background, etc.

Bringing about temporary
ego inflation through angry
reaction against someone
or something

REFLECT
Which of these behaviors do I own?

How and when do I utilize them?

How have they served me in the past?
Is it time to let them go?
Know that you do not Know

Learn to understand more
By not understanding
Than by understanding
John of the Cross



Enter into Unknowing

Mystery
Abandon Judgments
Generous
Interpretation


Parallel Universe
Thinking

The more afraid we
are, the more certain
we become. BBrown
What is your vulnerability?
Know What Hooks You
What arises in YOU?
What do you notice about your own
response?

What feelings arise?

What default response-tendencies do
you notice?

What, if anything, hooks you?
Four Step Process
The Challenge of Our Lives
Become Conscious of the Present Moment
Focus. Recognize Distractions. FOCUS!

Sweep Ego and Other Impediments Aside

Reflect: Open to your Inner Guidance,
your Inner Wisdom

Wait, with curiosity, Unknowing

Your Questions? Thoughts?
Listening Practice!!!

Pay attention during this
exercise!
Utilize your frontal lobe.




Be a witness to yourself.
Pay Attention To:
Content Your Internal
Process/Dynamics
Four Step Process
The Challenge of Our Lives
Become Conscious of the Present Moment
Focus. Recognize Distractions. FOCUS!

Sweep Ego and Other Impediments Aside

Reflect: Open to your Inner Guidance,
your Inner Wisdom

Wait, with curiosity, Unknowing

LISTEN FOR THE WISDOM
Reflect on
the two Justice poems
What, if anything:
Inspires you?
Surprises you?
Makes you emotional,
evokes your
compassion?
Challenges you,
creates resistance in
you?
Justice,
Paul Laurence Dunbar
Enthroned upon the mighty
truth,
Within the confines of the
laws,
True Justice seeth not the
man,
But only hears his cause.

Unconscious of his creed or
race,
She cannot see, but only
weighs;
For Justice with
unbandaged eyes
Would be oppression in
disguise.



Justice
Langston Hughes

That Justice is a blind
goddess
Is a thing to which we
black are wise:
Her bandage hides two
festering sores
That once perhaps were
eyes.



Group Listening Process
Round 1
Solitary Reflection

Silence

One person shares reflection
(or passes).

Silence

When all have spoken:
Conversation

Second Round of Listening


Group Listening Process
Round 2


Silence

One person shares reflection.

Silence

Each listener may ask clarifying
questions of the speaker

Silence

Third Round of Listening

Strategic Questioning
Question Categories
Strategic Questioning : An Experiment in Communication of the Second Kind, by Fran Peavey
1. FOCUS QUESTIONS
2. OBSERVATION QUESTIONS
3. FEELING QUESTIONS
4. VISION QUESTIONS

Moving into Strategic Questions.

5. CHANGE QUESTIONS
6. CONSIDER THE ALTERNATIVES QUESTIONS
7. PERSONAL INVENTORY AND SUPPORT
QUESTIONS
8. PERSONAL ACTION STEP(S) QUESTIONS


Group Listening Process
Round 3
Silence

One person shares reflection.

Silence

Ask Strategic Questions

Silence

Group discusses the process.


ADDITIONAL
CONSIDERATIONS:
KNOW YOURSELF
Eight Behavioral Blocks to Effective
Communication
adapted from the work of Lenn Snyder, MEd, LCSW

1.Deflection

2.Checking out
3.Wordiness

4.Tiredness and boredom not
created by fatigue
5. Intellectualizing

6. Numbness.

7. Bubble bursting.

8. Addictive
Behavior
(this is about so much more than
SUBSTANCES!)
Your Thoughts?
Your Questions?
Homework!
Review
Observe your own dynamics
Reflect
Practice
Observe others dynamics
Practice Compassion
I am like you. Were all in the same
boat together.
More research
The Happiness Advantage*


*Shawn Achor, 2011
The Happiness Advantage:
Shawn Achor

Optimism

Life Satisfaction

Superior Productivity

Greater resiliency

Creating Lasting Positive Change:
Five Proven Practices
Lets Practice

Three Gratitudes
(Emmons and Mccullough, 2003)
21 day practice altered brain patterns

Journaling
(Schlacter and Pennebaker, 2006)
1 positive experience each day
Exercise
(Babyack et al, 2000)
Meditation
(Dweck, 2007)
Enhances ability to focus
Random/Conscious
Acts of Kindness
(Lyubomirsky, 2005)
Sharon Browning
JUST Listening
sbrowning@justlistening.net
www.justlistening.net
Justice

That Justice is a blind
goddess
Is a thing to which
we black are wise:
Her bandage hides
two festering sores
That once perhaps
were eyes.

Langston Hughes
Justice.

Enthroned upon the mighty truth,
Within the confines of the laws,
True Justice seeth not the man,
But only hears his cause.

Unconscious of his creed or race,
She cannot see, but only weighs;
For Justice with unbandaged eyes
Would be oppression in disguise.

Paul Laurence Dunbar