I am indebted to JeanneLauree Olsen who contributed material for this
conversation.
I can tell when I'm not listening fully. I can. Really. I can
check it out. It's a powerful ability we each have which allows us to
re-assess, and then to listen fully again.
Listening fully calls me to be open, receptive, and uncritical, to the
point where I
disappear
to myself over here ... and then all there is for me (ie all that
remains) is you. To listen you fully, I have to (in a
word)
be with
you. And what tells me I'm no longer listening you fully /
being with
you, is the realization I'm listening my own
already internal
interpretation
of what you're saying, and am no longer listening what you're saying
... or ... when I notice I'm impatiently waiting for you
to get to a pause in what you're saying so I can interject and say what
I've been waiting to say / saving up to say - clearly, unavoidably,
none of which makes for full listening.
Distinguishing what it takes for me to listen fully (which as I said is
to at least be open, receptive, and uncritical) reveals to me how I can
support you in also listening fully. Watch: any access I may have to you
listening fully, is found (unsurprisingly) in my own speaking. Speaking
in a way that allows you to listen fully, is
constituted in my
language
ie in my conversation. Generally, it's in my choice of
words.
More particularly, it's in the degree of possibility I speak (more on
that in just a moment).
Having distinguished what listening fully is (and therefore by
inference, what listening fully is not), I've noticed how the
inclusion of provokers like "Maybe ...", "What if ....?", "It's
possible that ..." etc interspersed throughout my speaking, keeps the
conversation open rather than closed. It seems to me that each of them
tease out
new possibilities, even possibilities I haven't yet taken into account.
So they
generously
set you up for listening fully, and
participating
actively in the conversation. "I'm totally certain about this" is
harder to listen than "Maybe this is possible, what do you think about
it?" even if whatever I'm speaking about, is the same in both cases.
I've noticed how any fervently expressed certainty on my part, however
valid, isn't as easily gotten by a listening that's not yet enrolled,
as a maybe, as a possibility - which is to say, as any certainty
expressed as a maybe, as a possibility. Possibilities
("Maybe ..."s, "What if ....?"s, "It's possible that ..."s etc) are
easier to get, and so the unenrolled listening stays open. They show
I'm
interested
in your input, that I'm
generous,
that I'm inviting you to
participate,
and that I'm not overly invested in (ie I'm not overly attached to) my
own
point of view
- and any heavy investment in one's own
point of view
is an enrollment conversation
killer
at the best of times.
Many of the ideas and material in these
Conversations For Transformation
were either
Self-discovered
or became increasingly
Self-evident
the longer I listened
Werner, their source.
That said, I've noticed going for absolute certainty, at least when I'm
in conversations that are enrollment conversations, comes unwittingly
at a cost. It's a
paradox:
transformation brings certainty, and yet I've noticed when I'm
speaking transformation in an enrollment conversation, it works better
when I come from possibility than from certainty, even if I'm
completely certain! The listening I'm enrolling, stays open with the
former, yet is likely already fait accompli with the
latter.
Speaking into an unenrolled listening, my own certainty won't guarantee
everyone else will listen for transformation the way I do (look: if it
did,
the whole world
would be transformed by now). That's maybe because the machinery of the
already always
listening
has skewed our listening away from the possibility of being
transformed (for more on this, refer to the contents of the manila
folder labeled "Defense Mechanism 101"). The cost of certainty
without possibility, is incomplete listening, and inconclusive, low
enrollment. And certainty with possibility? That's an
intriguing (if not disconcerting) mix, the evidence of which is open
listening, and
big enrollment.