Mindful Listening
Give another person your whole attention, without spending their words planning your reply. One of the most valuable, and rarest, things you can offer anyone.
Deep listening is taught across contemplative and communication traditions. The practice is old. Only the plain instructions are ours.
How to do it
- 1
Pick one conversation today, and put your phone away, out of sight.
- 2
Give the person your full attention. Not performing attention at them, just actually attending.
- 3
Notice the urge to plan your response while they're still talking. Let it go and come back to listening. You can trust your reply to arrive when it's your turn.
- 4
When your mind drifts to yourself, your phone, or what's next, notice, and return to the person in front of you.
- 5
Let small silences be. You don't have to fill them.
- 6
Before you reply, make sure you actually heard them, and not just the gap where you could start talking.
What this is not
- It is not a technique to perform on people. They can feel the difference between being listened to and being listened at.
- It is not about agreeing, staying silent, or being passive. You can disagree and still have truly heard someone.
- It is not a tool for getting something out of people. The attention is the gift, not the tactic.
Sources & notes
Where this essay makes a factual claim, here is what it rests on, and what that evidence does and doesn't settle. Contemplative teachings and our own interpretations are labelled as such, not dressed up as science.
- That full attention to another person is a form of generosity.Teaching
The attributed teachings of Simone Weil, and the deep-listening tradition associated with Thich Nhat Hanh.
Contemplative teachings, offered for their insight rather than as measured outcomes.
- On giving presence rather than performance.Our synthesis
Attention Science synthesis.
Our framing. The point is to be present with the person, not to run a listening technique at them.
The thinking behind it
Attention Is How You Decide What Your Life Was About12 min