The power of listening

Every now and then I am surprised by the incredible transformative power of the simplest of acts. Simple phrases become mantras for entire political, spiritual and cultural movements. Such concepts and ideas have the ability to encapsulate powerful human emotions and provoke individuals to commit the most startling acts of love and kindness or the most disturbing acts of destruction and fear. 

I’ve spent a lot of time considering how entire populations of people could be led by charismatic speakers towards unfathomable horrors. This has taken me on an emotional rollercoaster of doubt, anger and resentment about the direction and purpose of the human experiment. So after plummeting to the lowest ebbs on this emotional ride I needed something to drag me slowly and agonisingly to the top again. Something to give me hope and that would allow me to look up at the sky in amazement before another seemingly inevitable drop. 


It was around this time that I came across a talk by a man named John Francis. In his lecture Francis described how after witnessing two oil tankers collide and spill all of their oil near the golden gate bridge in San Francisco his life was changed. So racked with a sense of responsibility was he, that from this moment onwards John decided that he would cease riding in motorised vehicles, a decision that he rightly stated is a pretty massive deal when you live in California. But John wasn’t satisfied with just that. After realising that in every conversation he had, instead of actually listening to people he would pre-empt what they were saying and prepare in his own mind his response. John decided that from that moment onwards he would no longer speak. In this vein he continued for 17 years. He walked without speaking across America all whilst silently pursuing his new found passion for the environment. John’s path took him to earning a BA, a masters and then a PHD in environmental sciences. He become a UN ambassador and wrote regulations on the safe control of oil for the U.S Government after finding out that he was the only person in the country qualified to do so! What he had discovered was startling and quite literally life changing. He claimed that he had learned more about himself, about others and about the world we live in than at any other time in his life, all of which he attributed to the extraordinary power of listening.

John’s talk about opening his mind by wondering the earth and shutting his mouth got me thinking about how listening had impacted my life as an individual. What it reawakened in me was surprising. I realised that the most emotionally nourishing points in my life had come from those moments when I had stopped myself from talking and allowed others to continue. It is amazing what people will reveal to you either to break the silence or to have the opportunity to express everything that’s been stewing inside them when you give them the opportunity. When I became more conscious of this I started integrating it into my social life. Rather than letting someone know my personal reflections on a subject, or how their story reminded me of something that had happened to me, I tried to let my impressions go and let the other person fully own the conversation. I found that the simple power of listening would allow people to unravel their social onion and reveal what it really was that made them tick, what they were passionate about, what scared them and who they really were. Listening is a wonderful form of connection that can create more communication between people than any other man made tool or medium has ever managed. By emptying your mind of any thoughts of how you relate to the situation you open up the avenues for the most conducive of human qualities: empathy. 

Whilst I am a long way away from perfecting this art, I have had enough hints of what listening can do to know that such a simple act can transform people’s lives on a fundamental level. By allowing myself to try out this most wonderful and basic of techniques I have created friendships and learnt more about the world than I have ever learned in over a decade of academic study. Listening endows you with powers of observation which enable you to see a complex tapestry within details that you might have otherwise have thought as simple and predictable. I don’t write this in order to claim I am more enlightened or compassionate than anyone else, but with the hope that someone will read this, reflect on and apply this to their own life. I impel you to experiment for one day where you engage in a conversation with anyone from a homeless person on the street to your own family members. Sit there and devote time to listening. For I hope that one of you will find in the moment of your darkest emotions the transformative power of the simplest of acts. And that in that moment you will see how the raw beauty of someone else’s truth can help you see the beauty again in the world, in others and in yourself.