Jericho, Vermont Listen Project
An impetus for discussion and discovery.
Jericho’s Valentine Day theme this year is “Jericho Listen Project - Listen with Your Heart”. Attentive and effective listening underpins all positive relationships, builds self-esteem and confidence, and can improve our health. From it, we can learn of new ideas and reach a shared acceptance of differing views. We can help others fully open up to communicate honestly. We can critically and accurately access what is being said. Effective listening can even help us develop better self-awareness.Listen up, we hear. Listen to those who have a different opinion or experience than you. Listen to those who are different looking than you. Listen to those less fortunate, and those less privileged than you.
All of which I think is good advice on many scores. Yet, not always easy to do, nor is every situation the same. Hearing is easier than listening.
Listening requires focused and concentrated effort. Effective listening is a skill and it can be learned and improved upon with intention. We can listen to learn, evaluate/analyze, and understand another person’s feelings and emotions and where their 'truths' come from. We can reflect on our feelings and emotions and where our 'truths' come from.I cannot count the number of times I have said, “wait a minute I thought you said…” only to find out I had not processed the words I heard correctly to understand the intended meaning and intent. Active listening requires me to quiet down my own thoughts, and what I want to say (without interrupting) in order to really hear and process the expressed thoughts of the other person speaking to me. Distractions, preconceptions, bias, and particular facets of my personality can derail the effectiveness of my listening. Sometimes I jump to or want to get to a conclusion long before hearing the speaker finish. Or I fail to take the time to ask questions for clarification to ensure my understanding of what was said, is correct.
It's okay to have opposing ideas. Let’s take listening to someone with a different opinion as one example. We might be quick to judge a mob of people for their collective expressed opinions. Might we feel differently about any one of those people if we talked to them on an individual basis? Knowing someone personally can impact how we judge them even if we judge a particular behavior of theirs as inappropriate, or judge a particular opinion of theirs as the near-polar opposite of our own. To understand another’s perspective we need to allow their stream to flow. If we go in without judgment wanting to understand their perspective, the other party will feel respected and more comfortable in streaming their views.
If we get to know an individual, I believe we will find them, like perhaps nearly all humans, to be complex beings. Consider the surprise, even shock, we sometimes feel, when we find out a close friend or family member expresses political rhetoric that we consider way, far left or right of our views or of the middle ground. Does this suddenly make that person an unacceptable friend or family member? Sadly, in some cases, that separation has occurred.
We all filter what we hear through our own thoughts.
“People completely identify with one side, one ideology. Reconciliation is to understand both sides, to go to one side and describe the suffering being endured by the other side, and then go to the other side and describe the suffering being endured by the first side." Our True Nature, Thich Nhat Hanh.
By listening with our heart, I envision not only being more empathetic, tolerant, and respectful of an opposing point of view. I mean as well, to listen from a neutral standpoint to know the reasons for the other person’s viewpoint. I mean reexamining our own assumptions, our own beliefs, and the reasons we have come to own them. Might we have come to different views had we been more or less fortunate, privileged, educated, or wealthy? Many circumstances out of our control help to develop who we are, how we think, and what we feel.
We might explore within ourselves what, about our experiences, brings us to our opinions? We might share that awareness with others and have them share what about their experiences brings them to their opinion. According to a recent NY Times opinion article The Science of Reasoning with Unreasonable People, “Social scientists have found that asking people how their preferred political policies might work in practice, rather than asking why they favor those approaches, was more effective in opening their minds.”
We might ask ourselves, what is our purpose in listening? Is it to simply understand a difference? Are we listening so that we might find common goals, needs, wants? Are we listening to find a way to come together so that we each can get reach our goals, each can solve our problems? Are we showing interest, asking open-ended questions? Do we seek to learn at least one piece of insight from every person we encounter? Are we seeking to build relationships? Can we listen not to change minds, not to change the other person’s opinions, but to change what we think of each other?
Can we make allies out of our adversaries, without accepting their actions that we believe are immoral or unjust? Can we recognize our adversaries as human and reach to their humanity for a common ground to resolving differences? Can we find paths to satisfying and effective compromises (through thorough listening) instead of winner-takes-all leaving one party out in the cold?
Challenging assumptions and disagreeing is good cooperative listening as opposed to trying to win an argument.
Language matters as well. If we speak openly leaving room for discussion we invite joint problem solving instead of trying to persuade the other party to change their view. Rhetoric, on the other hand, often repeated and splashed in headlines, becomes legitimized therefore becoming harder to challenge or look at more closely.
We can listen with the well-being of the community in mind, and with the health of the planet in mind, something bigger than just ourselves. We can ask ourselves, what will this do for our community?
As Presidents Bush, Obama, and Clinton reminded us after President Biden’s inaugural, we can listen not just to people we agree with but also with people we don’t. We can recognize the humanity in each other and what binds us together. We have more in common than what separates us.
I think listening can help us not just when we have differences, but also help us to learn more about each other as friends and neighbors often do. We also want to hear from those in need, to know how we might help. We need to be effective listeners to recognize the opportunity to lend a hand, or an ear, or other neighborly caregiving. Kudos to the Eric and the Axlerod boys as well as all those who contribute to Wood4good, as an example of neighbors helping neighbors. It is not easy for folks in need to ask for help. We can make it easier through effective community listening with heart.
By being curious about what is going on in other people’s lives, being respectful, non-judgmental, interested in what they think, we can improve our relationships, build stronger bridges over divides, and feel comfortable, to be honest and open with one another.
I once read a story about a co-pilot who perhaps did not have full self-esteem, was perhaps made to feel inferior by the pilot. Upon preparing for take off the co-pilot did not feel comfortable in expressing his opinion that the wings were not thoroughly de-iced. The pilot directed departure. The plane crashed shortly thereafter due to icing on the wings. If the co-pilot had been made to feel comfortable that he would be listened to and his judgment considered, perhaps the pilot would have heard the co-pilot’s concern and then made a different decision.
When I read that Tom Brady was the Super Bowl champion quarterback this year, I was sure the headlines were wrong in stating the Tamp Bay Buccaneers won the Super Bowl. I was asleep all season not knowing that Brady had left his long-time team, the New England Patriots. Never assume someone does not know what they are talking about, and always allow for the fact that you may be incorrect on some point of fact.
If we ask what people think, be genuinely interested without an agenda; trust will grow.
If we each listen to at least one person, be they friend or foe, spouse or neighbor, friend or stranger; perhaps one more person heard, one more person has truly seen and understood, one more person cared about, one more person valued, will build stronger and brighter hearts, more resilient to struggles, a community more willing to share and cooperate, with a greater understanding of each another; perhaps we will experience more caring and more love from and for all living beings, all life. If we better listen, perhaps we will hear an even better humanity that lives in each and all of us.
David Augsburger wrote, “Being heard is so close to being loved that for the average person, they are almost indistinguishable”.
The Jericho Listen Project - for discussion and discovery, is about Community listening to each other in ways we have not heard before.
I wish you all a Happy Valentine’s Day.
Bernie
I can hear, but am still learning how to listen! Much of the material, the listening skills in this essay are from various articles I have read on the topic.
I welcome your thoughts and ideas on the subject. As noted, this is meant to be an impetus for community discussion and discovery.
"The sensibility of a lot of the places where we have our discussions (the internet!) is, if we listen to ideas we endorse those ideas...The way that I have reframed that is, when you listen to someone you validate them as people. You don't validate their ideas." -Monica Guzman
View past Jericho Valentine Day Celebration photos at
https://jerichovermont.blogspot.com/2020/02/jericho-take-heart-in-community.html
And
https://jerichovermont.blogspot.com/2019/02/valentine-phantom-asks-do-you-believe.html
Also, consider reading my essay “Our multi-layered identities - a source of well being”
Emailed comments
Just wanted to share our attempt to honor love and snowflakes this year! Hope you’re staying warm. -Anna
