Like most of us, there are many aspects of myself that I remain blind to or incredibly uneasy to claim. But there is one persistent quality that is pure, innocent and stubbornly convicted. I am determined to see the goodness in everyone I meet. To be clear, this has not always served me well. In my lifetime, this conviction has often left me frustrated and disappointed. It also poses a challenge in trusting my own perceptions. BUT I love this part of me…it feels heart centered and is one thing I claim unapologetically. Honestly, despite its pitfalls, I do not see a day when I would decide to forfeit its mission.
Given this fact, I think it is serendipitous that I have always loved the game Hide and Seek. And while I am still known to tuck myself behind the occasional tree while my niece or nephew shout out, “ready or not here I come,” I play a much more sophisticated game of Hide and Seek in my daily life. I believe most of us have neatly folded up our best parts and tucked them away into the inner crevices of our hearts. Our originality is often traded in for the safer option of “fitting in.” And with enough habituation of hiding ourselves, we often completely lose sight of the parts that give us our unique sense of belonging and purpose in the world.
Conversational Prospecting and Kaleidoscope Listening are the two skills at the center of YOU.logy and the tools I have honed to not only find the goodness, but also help others rediscover their own unique presence in the world. Asking open ended questions that go beyond surface level answers is only part of the process. If we want to find the essence of each other, we must listen. Sadly, this is a skill that is not well practiced and while it is a simple act, it proves difficult for most of us. We all long to be heard but do a pretty miserable job at giving each other the kind of attention true listening requires. I wonder why this is, and found myself introspective about my relationship with listening.
In contemplating it, I realized I have employed many different ways of listening throughout my lifetime. As a child, I grew up in a home with closely safeguarded secrets. I had not realized it, but this environment taught me to listen to what wasn’t being said, which included body language and eye movements. This kind of listening served a deeply personal need for security and demanded a hypervigilant level of attention. While some may describe this as a coping strategy, I see it as a rare kind of listening not often found among others.
When I started school, I learned a more universally shared form of listening that I often call parrot listening. I listened in a way that allowed me to recall and repeat what was said. This kind of listening did not require me to actively possess the information as my own, and unless I was interested in it, I generally didn’t. I remembered it long enough to serve some short-term objective and the level of attention it required was fleeting.
When I got my first job, I listened to understand what would be expected of me and to collect the information most helpful in eliminating the discomfort I had within my job performance. This type of listening allowed me to acquire knowledge and skill but was strongly motivated by a self-interest to be accepted and rewarded within the environment.
When I chose to pursue a career in social work, my college coursework introduced me to a much more nuanced approach to listening; one that demanded both an inward and outward focus. Up until that point, I had no real connection to self-awareness, nor an “ear” for my own interiority and its implications for successful communication. If I am being honest, most of my listening evolved out of a self-serving motivation to “belong and get along.”
This educational track was my first exposure to just how diverse people’s lived experiences can be. It also introduced the idea that unexamined beliefs had the potential to alienate others. I never saw myself as an insensitive or hurtful person, but my professors were tireless in listening for the ways my language carried presumptions and judgements. This was a humbling and challenging lesson. Although I understood the importance of learning how I was “showing up” and what kind of conversational environment I was creating, their diligent thought and language policing often left me terrified, and tongue tied. My experience helped me recognize we all deserve conversational grace, and I practiced listening more for intention.
This was also the “playground” where I first learned to listen for people’s hidden strengths. In my role as a social worker, I often listened to harrowing circumstances that ravaged my heart and went beyond understanding. My focus was to listen for what interventions and problem-solving tactics they had tried in the past, and to discover their unique set of strengths that could be paired with untapped resources. Despite some of the devastating realities I witnessed, this work gave me my first glimpse into how much we benefit from having something positive about ourselves discovered and reflected to us.
When my own life started to be affected by a loved one’s addiction, I found myself needing the support I was trying to offer others. Sick with worry and a healthy dose of self-pity, I lied awake one fateful night, ruminating about a pattern of problematic interpersonal relations. In a true moment of clarity, I concluded the only common denominator was me and perhaps, it was I, that needed to change. The next morning, I looked up Al Anon meetings and humbly joined the ranks of those who “loved their way” into over responsibility and problematic boundaries. It was here that I learned the most delicious form of listening…the kind that demanded NO RESPONSE.
For those of you unfamiliar with 12 Step traditions, sharing in the group is “managed” by three simple rules. First, everyone is given the opportunity to share their personal experience. Each participant can either accept or pass. Secondly, to ensure everyone can be heard, time is assessed, and a limit is placed on how much time is available for each person’s contribution. For codependents, whose needs were consistently being abandoned, this time and space was a privilege and boundary held in great regard. Finally, there is a rule of NO CROSS TALK, which means you cannot offer advice or comment on what someone has shared. This was not only another monumental shift for most codependents, but it also created an incredible amount of safety to be vulnerable and truly honest.
If you have not experienced this before, try it. It is astounding to watch how much our listening involves strategizing a response or attempting to fix, advise or reframe someone’s perspective. It is so liberating to just listen. And when you do…it is uncanny how often someone’s experience poignantly delivers the exact words you need to hear. You do not have to attend a 12-step group to experience this. Just make the commitment to listen and place no expectation on yourself to have a response. The practice is humbling and remarkably revelatory. My experience with it also showed just how much I share in common with others and how much wisdom is accessible all around me.
The twelve steps initiated my first authentic spiritual exploration. With no dogma and moralistic rules, I quickly found a sense of belonging here. I traveled its practical wisdom and grew increasingly interested in my relationship with self, others and the divine. This inquiry eventually led to a meditation practice that threw the door open on a whole new world of listening. This is the kind of listening that is found in your body, in the silence and space between the incessantly busy mind and in the small, whispered nudges that guide us in unexpected ways. This is where I found a connection to an inner wisdom within myself that always and in all ways knows what serves my highest good. Meditation honed my early foray into self-awareness, bringing a much higher level of clarity and attunement. It has taught me to listen and BE in my life with a maximum level of receptivity.
It was all these faces of listening that converged into the professional skill I used in my 26-year career as a custom picture framer. In this role, I listened to understand what was important to someone and how they were seeing something. In developing the concept that I now call Kaleidoscope Listening, I have also discovered just how little we listen to ourselves. And this skill is no less important in serving our own self-knowledge. Essentially, we are listening for the story, which is how we make sense of what we have experienced and what is important to us.
I know it seems odd that picture framing has any relationship to this idea…but every day I was subconsciously using these skills and watching it produce beautiful results, both interpersonally and creatively. One of the greatest privileges I experienced as a picture framer was access to deeply personal stories. This happened because every client walked in with something that held personal significance for them. Let’s be honest, this was a starting point to intimacy and inquiry that most everyday interactions do not grant us. But here is how it worked.
I would ask them to tell me about the piece, which always included a story with details that told me what was important to them. I would also ask them if they had come in with any ideas, so we could start our design conversation from their perspective. Their answer provided me insight into how they saw the piece, which included many things, like their favorite part of the image, where it would be hung, colors they liked, personal style preferences and just how well formed their vision for its presentation had been developed.
- As they talked, I used my childhood listening and paid attention to what wasn’t being said but expressed through their tone of voice, widened eyes, or elevated emotion.
- I took mental notes of their word choices so when I started to assemble ideas for them, I could parrot back their own words and explain why I incorporated a specific detail in the frame or mat selections.
- Because custom framing has no predictability to it, each of us felt some uneasiness in not knowing the exact outcome of our time together. As such, I entered every interaction by listening for the information that would help me meet their expectation and produce the best product.
- What I learned in meditation allowed me to stay alert and receptive to both my own instincts and what was important to the client.
- The kind of listening I learned in Al Anon was crucial. My best design ideas ALWAYS emerged from what the client shared, not because I had years of experience and was considered the expert.
- And finally, just like in my social work career, many clients found the process intimidating and would have willingly abandoned their own role in the process. But just like working with clients in a therapeutic setting, I needed to find ways to invite their voice and get them emotionally invested in the success of this project, which ultimately moved them into an empowered and fully collaborative process.
So why do I call it kaleidoscope listening? Well, because much of it was being practiced while I was working as a picture framer. For those of you unfamiliar, the custom framing process is very much like what happens in a kaleidoscope. A single piece of art can be seen and presented in a myriad of ways by simply assembling and rearranging a collection of materials. And because kaleidoscopes achieve their wonder using mirrored reflection, I see a parallel in how I practiced listening for someone else’s view and reflecting it back to them. Finally, I call it kaleidoscope listening because it took the many facets of how I learned to listen to comprise this truly magnetic and creative force.
Listening was my most effective creative tool. Listening created connections that were otherwise not apparent and it made space for people to access and rediscover important parts of themselves in the process of a simple conversation.
Just like a single piece of art can be seen and interpreted in many different ways, so too can our world view and our understanding of ourselves and each other. By practicing kaleidoscope listening we provide an opportunity to see things differently, to reflect on our own view, to discover and reflect something back to others and to build connections through the process.
Share some of the unique ways you practice listening. Or some of the ways you struggle with it.