lessons in listening
pathways for understanding and thoughts on storytelling
I have spent a lot of time recently thinking about the way I was taught to listen.
In many ways, listening, like breathing, eating, and thinking, feels like a simple task to do. I don’t remember the exact moment when I learned, but I remember the little things I picked up along the way.
My kindergarten teacher raised her hand in the air in the middle of a chatter-filled classroom. I focused, quieted, and waited for an announcement.
In a game of Telephone, my friends and I giggled in confusion as a once-cohesive sentence struggled to find a clear passage through the mouths and ears of 9-year-old girls. I tried my best to capture every word before passing the message on to my neighbor.
During a middle school debate, I jotted down the arguments of my opponent to prepare for my speech. In my head, I prayed the details would guide me to victory.
All of these instances are bound by their situation-driven demand for my attention and memory. Listening, as a practice, called me to be present and actively search for an important message.
I always tell my friends and family that now my job offers me the unique privilege of spending my entire day listening. I hear people’s stories, concerns, fears, hopes, and whatever else could make its way into an hour-long conversation. The best parts of journalism are the opportunities to cover something new every day, learn a new subject, see the world from someone else’s point of view, and hear stories about what has gotten someone to where they are today. Journalism was one of my first introductions to listening for understanding.
Every day, people welcome me into their homes, tell me about their parents, partners, and children, and, on my favorite days, let me deliver a quick scratch on their dog’s head.
I am rarely pushed to share about myself, but, last week, I participated in my first-ever Narrative 4.
For those unfamiliar with the decade-old nonprofit founded by Lisa Consiglio and Colum McCann, Narrative 4 is a story exchange program that aims to build connection and empathy through “the power of storytelling.”
Perhaps I am super uninformed (a possibility!). But, I had never come across the program or participated in anything like it. I was eager to jump on the opportunity when I was invited to an event.
What makes Narrative 4 different from other community roundtables and story exchanges is that you are tasked with telling someone else’s story in the first person as if it were your own.
At the top of a story exchange session, you are paired with a partner, you spend 6-8 minutes sharing a story based on a handful of prompts given by your session moderator, and then you listen.
When the small group returns to our shared table of 10-16 people, we are all tasked with sharing our partner’s story with the group. We lead with the phrase, “My name is ______, and this is my story.”
How daunting it is to share anything about yourself!
When I tell personal stories to other people, I clam up. I tend to rush past the details, often losing my breath in a race to my final sentence. It’s incredibly scary to look someone in the eye and bear even a fragment of your soul and self.
I love to just listen and pay attention.
As my partner shared their story, I delighted in the process of getting to know them, collecting small details, and trying to memorize the names of their story’s characters. In the back of my mind, I tucked away questions. How did that make you feel? Where were you when you learned…? What did that look like?
Then, it was my turn. For a moment, I felt I had lost all my senses. I scanned through the prompts trying to find something that spoke to me or called a story to my mind. As I flipped through my memories, I thought to myself, “Eh, that doesn’t feel very meaningful or profound” and “What’s the moral of talking about that?”
My instinct was to invalidate the importance of my experiences and dig for something emotional, but that made me uncomfortable too. I settled for an anecdote about going to a mock government camp in high school. I guessed my partner would be entirely unmoved.
The full group gathered back at our table, and I listened to partnered pairs share each other’s stories. Some were about self-discovery and others about loss. All were intriguing, revealing details you would never guess about a person upon a first encounter.
In the gaps between stories, I ticked through facts about my partner in my head, anxious that I would mess up a detail when it was my turn to present. When the moment came, I took a deep breath and began. “My name is … and this is my story.”
I found myself glancing to the right, sneaking glimpses at my partner’s face to gauge whether or not I was doing the story justice. Had my deep listening paid off? I reminded myself to not rush, to be present, and remember how it felt to hear those words the first time. In speaking them, I imagined I would feel if they had been my own. At the end, the group clapped and exchanged smiles. My story was next.
Upon telling my partner this tale minutes earlier, I didn’t feel it was particularly deep. But as soon as I heard my partner say “My name is Tamia and this is my story,” I felt my heart rate spiking.
It’s an incredibly odd experience to hear someone say statements that belong to you and capture your feelings. Hearing my words flow out of my partner’s mouth with such ease and accuracy instantly jarred and moved me. On several occasions, a tear threatened to trickle from the corner of my eye.
Eyes around the table were bouncing between me and my partner. Though I couldn’t tell what they were feeling, I felt undeniably heard and seen.
During story exchanges, we, the participants, are challenged to deeply listen. Our thoughtful engagement is exhibited by our ability to look someone in the eye and hear them. It is exhibited by our willingness to embody their experience and our care in doing so.
The responsibility of presenting another person’s truth is an intimidating weight to bear. I remain deeply grateful for its ability to foster understanding between people from different backgrounds.
As a journalist, I think often about the responsibility of presenting someone else’s story to the world and doing so in an authentic, truthful, and diligent way. I felt inspired to share about Narrative 4 because the exercise pushed me to trust.
Trust in my ability to listen. Trust in other people’s willingness to hear me. And trust that when we placed our stories into someone else’s hands and permitted them to convey the details of our lived experience, they would do so thoughtfully.
I think we all need more reminders of that. We are worth listening to and someone is willing to hear us.
When was the last time you were challenged to listen? What did you learn?