No. 2159
Deep Listening
Carol Stuart
Do you ever notice that as you’re learning about a concept or an idea, that just about everything you do has the concept embedded in it? Sometimes you find it is reflected in your day-to-day actions and other times you are engaged in what you thought was a completely separate discussion, and suddenly, there is it. There is a concept called deep listening, which has been on the top of my mind. Deep listening requires me to hear while letting go of the inner clamour of the mind and screening out the many environmental distractions that surround me. Deep listening is relational; it draws me towards the other person to truly understand their perspective. Such an understanding occurs without attending to the judgments going on in my mind; the emotions which may be connected; or the environmental or spiritual distractions of the moment. Deep listening shows up everywhere and nowhere.
I am coming to understand that deep listening may have a cultural component. Larry Littlebird (2001) describes the art of learning to listen. He describes deep listening as our connection to spirituality, our connection to all that is sacred. “When one listens deeply, it is possible to reach an edge of reality more fully and grasp wisdom in each moment” (p. 15). He describes the sacred role of the hunter in Pueblo culture as they provide for family and bring the community together. Hunters are vested with the sacred responsibility for life, since they take life (through the hunt) to ensure ongoing life in the community. They must stay in balance and listen deeply to do so.
Deep listening is a theoretical concept that involves experiential learning, reflection, and the development of an unconscious physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual competence with a focus on understanding. It must be practiced and repeated, reflected upon and refined. In the same manner that the carpenter comes to unconsciously, but physically remember exactly how to hit the head of the nail through a million repetitions; so too must deep listening be repeated and practiced. It must always be on the top of your mind and yet invisible. Much of our modern North American culture is not designed to allow for the repetition of a deep listening process until it becomes unconscious. There is an expectation that we are attending to and absorbing many things. Music pours through earphones or from speakers in the ceiling. Interruptions occur irregularly throughout our day. Technology brings multiple relational messages and information through e-mail, social media, and news media. Our connection with people and their daily lives is expanded through technology, yet rarely do we connect with the pace of the natural environment to find that spiritual connection.
In our first article, Christine Slavik describes an approach to developing mindfulness in the classroom for Child and Youth Care practitioners. She notes that “mindfulness is a state characterized by openness, sensitivity to context and engagement with the present moment.” In short, mindfulness is the root to deep listening and has the potential to deepen therapeutic relationships through presence. She not only describes her approach and the various strategies for experiential learning which can enhance mindfulness, she also evaluated the effect these exercises had on students.
Columnists Andie Fournier and Thom Garfat remind us about the lessons they learned from students. Teachers can at times be overprotective and forget that students bring their own knowledge and experiences to their practice. Their growth and development can be challenging to mentors or senior practitioners who don't pause to listen deeply and reflectively to both the needs and capacities of students. When we pause to listen to their understanding it is cause for celebration and for learning.
In the program description of “Reach me and you can teach me” Simon Faulkner and Lisa Wood describe a hand drumming program in Australia in which young people are engaged in social learning through drum circles. Drumming develops a deep relational connection through physical motion and synchronous sound. It embodies listening without words; listening to rhythm, pacing, and subtle experiences of leadership and relational connection. There is a spiritual component to drumming which takes the group beyond their individual connection to the drum and the repetition to a deep and common connection to each other at a relational level without the need for words.
The connection between deep listening and experiential learning continues in the article by Teresa Fraser. Life-books and life story work are strategies for helping young people in care create a visual connection to their life history, which is absent when young people are moved frequently through the child welfare system. Truly understanding both the challenges of attempting such a documented history and the emotional and relational ramifications of processing it with a young person are developed when the experience is replicated for CYC students in a college classroom. Working with a young person to create a life book and explore their life story is an exercise in deep listening and cannot be taken lightly. Our personal identities are constructed from our history and if we can’t remember, envision, or capture that history, what does that mean for a young person’s identity?
Liz Laidlaw in her column on parenting captures the ever changing struggle of a parent with the emerging identity of a young person. She describes moments that cannot be captured for many young people in care since when they reach adulthood they do not have the memory and stories of their parents about those moments of conflict and the true messages we hoped they could hear. Donna Jamieson shares the struggles and joys of grandparents who are raising their grandchildren in an effort keep young people close and connected to family.
The student work in this issue is by Marianne Caroleo, who explores the risks and benefits of alternative education for young people who were asked to leave the traditional school system. Caroleo wonders: Do we really know what we are doing? The evaluation literature is sparse, but the expert opinions are diverse. I was reminded when reading this literature review of the similar controversy within the residential care literature. Young people who step out of the norm and live life on the edge create controversy, because we are unsure of how to relate to them (Gharabaghi, 2012) and perhaps because they are listening deeply and we are not. So we isolate them in alternative schools and in residential programs and may not truly and deeply listen to the implications of such isolation. When they reach out trying to find someone who will truly listen, we are challenged in our efforts by program restrictions, and all too often fail in our societal responsibility. Columnist Garth Goodwin describes what happens when residential workers choose to let kids go rather than restrain them to keep them safe. Programmatic direction may be to report young people as “AWOL”; the effect of which is that the police complain about the cost of “the hunt”. The societal responsibility for protecting our children is forgotten in the clash between the mixed up needs and values of government funded services such as policing, child protection, and mental health.
The direct effects of this clash on a practitioner are described by Alex Vasilijevic in his article on the extremes of child protection. He is not challenging the government funded service of child protection. He is challenging our societal responsibility to our children; the importance of child protection as a responsibility for all. The responsibility to keep children out of harm’s way in the work that we do AND the responsibility for making our community spaces ones where community is welcome — even if that increases the risk to children. These are difficult challenges that require us to listen to the needs of community and the individual, and be prepared to forgive ourselves and each other.
It is difficult to listen deeply and understand, based only on the written word. And yet, in this journal it is the written word, with the occasional illustration, that conveys the ideas and experiences of the authors. As a reader, you may only choose one article or you may review them all. As the editor for this issue I've read them all several times. On each round, I understand a little more deeply what the author is trying to convey. I hear a more collective message about the chaos of our services for young people and the focused efforts of Child and Youth Care practitioners to pause and be with those young people on the edges of society. To understand them and connect them — to listen deeply and in the moment as we strive to ensure they flourish in that chaotic world.
References
Gharabaghi, K. (2012). Being with Edgy Youth. New York: Nova.
Littlebird, L. (2001) Hunting Sacred, Everything Listens: A Pueblo
Indian Man’s Oral Tradition Legacy. Santa Fe: Western Edge Press.
Editorial, Relational Child and Youth Care Practice. Vol.27, No.1
