Seven Thousand Ways to Listen

Deep Listening

"Deep listening is more than hearing with our ears, but taking in what is revealed in any given moment with our body, our being, our heart."- Susan McHenry, Seven Thousands Ways to Listen, page 83

Did you know there are seven thousand living languages on Earth? When Nepo learned this information from a Nigerian linguist friend, it stood to reason there must then be at least seven thousand ways to listen.

Hearing is distinct from listening. The former occurs physically when a signal is generated in the ear that gathers discrete pieces of information from all the senses and sends the aggregate to the brain. The latter is an innate process that integrates an array of sensations we encounter through different ways of knowing (sight, smell, touch, taste and sound).

To practice deep listening, we’re urged to learn how to keep emptying and opening. Such expansion is a personal pilgrimage that takes time plus a willingness to circle back. Ironically, the author came to the awareness that there exists a different way of being (and interacting with the world) as his own hearing was breaking down.

Journal Questions

"Can you hold the door of your tent open to the firmament?"- Lao Tzu, Seven Thousand Ways to Listen, page 22

To encourage us to listen to the part of us that life is trying to wake, we’re offered Reflective Pauses throughout. These taking-stock points are an invitation to close our eyes, inhale and exhale, and literally breathe in the core messages conveyed.

These “meditations” are followed by journal questions. Here are some especially provocative examples of inquiries to which we can scribe our responses:

• Describe a learning you were born with and how you came to discover this. Where does this learning live in you now?
• Describe a moment in which you briefly lost your way and what this did to you. What if anything was disturbing about this? What if anything was beneficial or growth-enhancing?
• Is there a feeling you’re currently avoiding or running away from? Why? What would happen if you let that feeling touch you?
• Trace your own history and evolution as a listener. Describe three key experiences that have shaped what listening has meant to you. What have you heard along the way that has opened you to life and your place in it?
• Which part of you – deep listener, speaker or questioner – is the most experienced? Which needs more of your attention? If each is a teacher, what has each taught you?

Table Questions

"A mind that is stretched by a new experience can never go back to its old dimensions."- Oliver Wendell Holmes, Seven Thousand Ways to Listen, page 120

These questions are intended to be asked over dinner or coffee with friends and loved ones. The suggestion is to try listening to everyone’s response before discussing.

Here is a series of meaningful conversation starters:

• Consider how experience has excavated a depth in you. What has been opened in you?
• Tell the story of a time when you were slow to listen to a change that was unfolding in your life. In retrospect, what were the signs you were given that change was happening? How did not listening impact you?
• Tell the story of a moment when giving and receiving seemed indistinguishable. What did this moment teach you?
• Discuss a situation you lived through in which the truth involved more than just your point of view. How do you now understand what happened?
• In the next week, stop and listen without expectation to another person. This includes their actual words, below their words, the space that surrounds them and the presence you feel once they leave. Can you listen to the silence beneath their presence?