Therapist's experience of discovering true listening in a therapy session

Here is a research paper that I wrote for one of my papers during my Masters' education. I am posting it here because I have had many friends who read my paper state that I should share it with people. I then remembered that I have again (as always) been MIA and thought of making use of this platform to post my paper.

This paper is not only a good reminder for all of you readers but also to me about the importance of Listening.

Introduction:

Many times in my life I have felt that I was not being listened to, understood, heard or even given the necessary attention that I had been looking for when I am trying to express myself or open up with a close one. In this case, the close ones often happened to be my parents who have been overtaken by the technology of this new era (i.e. gadgets and apps on their phones). As soon as I would sit them down for an important conversation, my mum’s phone would vibrate and she would be constantly replying back to the message on her phone or checking notifications. When I would tell my mom that she is not listening to me, she would say- yeah I am listening from my ears, I don’t need to look at you when I am listening. The same would happen with my father, whether my mom is trying to speak to him or I am, if we speak to him after lunch, his attention will be on his iPad (playing candy crush) and he would say “keep talking, I am listening from my ears.”

All this used to hurt my brother and I, because we were not getting the attention we needed, and we were not being understood and it felt like neither of our parents would really listen to us. In this journey of me wanting to become a transpersonal therapist, I started to pray to my Divine with passion asking for a solution for wanting to actually be listened to. I felt my prayer began being answered when I saw an email from one of the guides from Oneness University, India, inviting me to attend a short 3 days’ spiritual retreat course. I felt in my heart that this retreat will help me find the solution that I had been desperately searching for.

At the retreat, one of my favorite exercises was the art of listening. We were asked to pair up and then to take turns being a listener and being a speaker. The one who was listening was only supposed to listen not only to the one speaking but also listen and be aware of their inner thoughts and dialogue while listening to the speaker. This was an interesting and eye-opening experience for me. I believe the art of listening, when mastered, can really come in handy for a therapist when working with clients in the session. Thus began my journey of self-studying and observing myself in regards to how much progress I have been making in my art of listening.

My first experience of true listening happened 4 months ago when my father had come to pick me from work in his car. It was a 25 minutes’ car ride back home, those minutes happened to be very special 25 minutes where I got to have a quality time bonding with my father. My father opened up about his pain and sadness from childhood and also at present. At first, there were some commentaries going on in my head while hearing my father speak. As I listened to the commentaries in my head for a few minutes and became aware, it started to quiet down and I was then able to externally listen to what my father was saying. From my side, there was only listening, with no thoughts in the head, no judgments. Slowly, along with the listening, a connection started to happen between my dad and me. As I became aware of everything that was happening within me and also on the external front, compassion started to arise. I felt my heart open up to my father, feeling his pain as my own, and tears started to form in my eyes. I felt in that moment some form of magical healing of hearts started to take place. For me, it was my relationship and bond with father getting better. For my father, it was that he felt for the first time in our family, someone really listened to him and understood him.

I then realized from the above experience that this is what I want to bring in the therapy session as a therapist in order for my clients to really find healing. However, not only do I want myself to master the art of listening as a therapist, but I also want to share it with other therapists so that clients everywhere could benefit from it.

Method of data collection:

I believe, to be excellent listeners in the therapy session, we would first need to be excellent listeners in general. Thus, began my process of self-observation, anywhere and everywhere. For example- while spending time with family, going out with friends, at work with colleagues, or over the phone. I started to keep track of how much attention I was able to give (100%? 90%? 80%?) while listening to the other. I would make a note of all my observations in my journal. 
For example- today while speaking to my colleague I had a strong urge to interrupt, as I focused on the inner dialogue it became quiet and then I was able to bring back my full attention to the colleague. I also have read a few articles and did some exercises from the articles that I felt resonated, and recorded my experience from it in my journal. Along with observing myself, I also happened to observe people in my surroundings and added to my journal what I felt resonated with me.

Findings:

“Silence + Listening = Learning”

The above equation came to me as a realization, and I will be explaining it shortly. Firstly, I would like to share my experience from the exercise I did- the Three Visual Gifts exercise from the textbook chapter "visual, auditory and movement-related senses" (Anderson, &Braud, 2011).

Before beginning the exercise, I did a slow breathing meditation focusing only on my breathing and noticing the sensations that arose from inhaling the cool air and how it filled my lungs, and the sensations as I exhaled the warm air released from my nostrils. While continuing to breathe I shifted my focus to my body sensations and how it felt while I was breathing. I then visualized that I was in my happy place where I am at most peace, comfortable and feel alive.

Exercise:

My comfortable happy place in nature happens to be at a beautiful island, where I am sitting on the rocks overlooking the seashore while listening to the sound of the beautiful sea waves splashing against each other. I then hear a beautiful sound of a waterfall somewhere behind me, feeling the lovely cool breeze on my face and my hair moving as the breeze moved it, I can hear the sound of birds chirping on the trees, and the sound of crickets and grasshoppers as well.

Suddenly 3 boxes appear in front of me out of nowhere of colors blue, yellow and green.

Blue Box: As I opened the wrapping and the blue mist emerged, i just heard 2 words "Just Be" in a loud booming Divine like presence voice. As I sat in contemplation I realized, to me Just Be means, stillness... That is, don't do anything, just stay still and witness what is going on in your internal and external world, and that's it.

Yellow Box: As i then opened the wrapping of the Yellow box, the yellow mist emerged, and this time I heard the same loud booming Divine like voice say, "Just Listen". what I realized after contemplation about it is, don't interrupt, just listen. Recently I have been having trouble with just listening specially during our family discussions. I interrupt, comment, and judge to what my family, especially my brother has to say. I have also realized that not listening gives me more pain and exhaustion than Just listening. So here, I need to pay attention to myself- internal thoughts, judgments, comments, and also external self-check if I am Just listening with complete attention to what the other is saying.

Green Box: this time when I opened the wrapping of the green box, followed by opening the green box itself.... the box actually opened with a loud celebratory pop like sound, followed by the green mists that emerge out in a dance like movement. Then I heard the same voice, but this time it was more joy likeand said, "Just Enjoy".
I realized, although I feel that recently I have been enjoying my life making others laugh, spending time with my family, being all bubbly, I really haven't been actually Enjoying. I haven’t been paying attention to what I am eating and enjoying by being in the here and now. When spending time with family, I haven’t really been enjoying the moment- looking at my mom's beautiful smile, and my dad's handsome features, and my brother's adorable annoying comments. I really haven’t been living my life in the moment or enjoying it. I think the Green Box wanted to remind me to do that.

For a whole week, I contemplated on the above guidance – Just Be, Just listen, and Just enjoy. To be honest, it wasn’t easy to practice these in daily routine life at first. However, I continued to practice to “Be, listen, and Enjoy”. A daily meditation routine helped me to “keep calm and carry on”.

On one of the weekends, I went to the beach with a friend of mine to walk on the wet sand, as I feel it’s very therapeutic. As I was walking, a friend was just chattering away nonstop, and all I wanted to do was listen to the waves and enjoy the whole thing in silence. I started to observe all that was going on around me and within. As I paid attention to my inner frustration and struggle, it started to tell me a story. I then realized upon hearing the story, that I actually had an idea/expectation of how I wanted to spend my day at the beach with my friend. The frustration arose because the expectation/idea was not becoming a reality and I was trying too hard to make it that way instead of enjoying in the here and now. As this realization hit me, there was acceptance, and calm. I was able to then “just be” in the moment at the beach with my friend, “just listening” to her chatting and to the waves as well, and as I experienced the above two, I started to naturally “just enjoy” my whole experience there.

Right then and there another realization hit me, Silence + Listening = Learning. At the beach, when I was in silence, I was then able to listen to my inner world, the dialogue within, and later as I accepted, and witnessed the dialogue, I was able to learn something from it. This reminded me of a Sanskrit proverb my mum told me about the coins and the money, which when translated says, "The coins make a lot of noise and have less or no value, the money note is silent and has a lot of value."

Furthermore, here is another entry from my journal:

"Today I was afraid to speak to my mum after we had a fallout. At first, I thought it was probably my ego that won’t allow me to speak to her (which is partially true). However, as I continued to contemplate and listen to myself, I realized that I was actually afraid of rejection from my mom. I was afraid of facing her anger, being yelled at and denied the attention that I was seeking from my mom.

I kept observing this inner dialogue of mine. I then heard my inner gut/divine’s voice saying, “so what if I get rejected, she is my mom and I don’t need to be afraid to speak to her”. As I was hearing all of this, I started to get courage. I spoke to my mom and apologized to her, and said let’s go out for dinner. She just looked at me and started to open up, and cried. I feel she felt better after I listened to her without any interruptions, giving her full attention without any judgments (internal or external)."

Here, I would like to point out from my journal entry, the equation falls in place here as well (silence + listening = learning). For me, there was a learning when I listened to my inner dialogue in silence, that I actually had fear of rejection.

My point is, when in a therapy session or outside, as a therapist when one truly listens, they not only help their clients find healing but also help themselves by learning more about themselves, especially when there is an inner dialogue happening while listening externally to the other. The trick is to listen to your inner dialogue without doing anything, just mere listening. Everything else after that goes in a flow, it is automatic.

"The world is giving you answers each day. Learn to listen."

"If you are not Listening, you're not Learning" - Lyndon Baines Johnson

References:

1.     Anderson, R. &Braud, W. (2011) Transforming Self and Others Through Research: Transpersonal research methods and skills for the human sciences and humanities. State University of New York Press. New York, New York.

2.     Braud, W., & Anderson, R. (1998). Transpersonal research methods for the social sciences: Honoring human experience. Alternate Ways of Working with Data. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.