How you listen to someone’s story affects everything about it
We listen in the womb. Before we speak, we learn to parse what we see, and notice differences in what we hear. Nothing could make sense without the instinct to observe, categorize, and connect dots. On average, we spend more than half of our day listening (PDF). It is so natural that our listening is easy to ignore. But the ability to listen is nearly miraculous.
Miraculous and personal. Listeners bring their whole selves to the act, including a brain that can home in on one message, and the conditioning of society in language, mores, assumptions, distractions, and all the rest of it. Even the word “hearing” is too limited when thinking about listening. Every sense listens, waits to take in information and sends it to the brain.
Still, with all that at work, two people from similar backgrounds (same language, same society, even same home) can easily misunderstand each other. The chance for misunderstandings increase as backgrounds diverge. It turns out our innate abilities are not enough. So what is the “on” button for listening?
Intention.
And the act of listening to narrative, according to research, has a remarkable effect on everyone involved—the teller, the listener, and the understanding between them.
Listening large
The mere presence of a listener changes a story’s dynamic. For example, the act of telling a story to someone else will help the teller place that story in the past, lessening its emotional effects over time. This happens even when there is an anticipation that someone will listen (or read) a story. For another example, a storyteller’s willingness to tell is driven by their sense of whether the listener will be supportive. So a former soldier might be more likely to tell their story if a fellow soldier is listening.
The actions of a listener can start or stop stories. For example, when in conversation, listeners must cue that they will “allow” a story to be told when initiated. When a “bid” to tell a story “fails,” the storyteller is less likely to recall that story with the same vivid detail.
Once a story starts, listeners’ engagement with the storyteller can change the story itself. When noticing that a listener is distracted, storytellers will change stories’ structures, interpretations to try to draw them in.
But the most impressive effect is how storytellers perceive their own stories after telling them to distracted listeners. If I tell you a story and you are distracted, I will be less likely to believe that story is a reflection of me. I will feel you did not agree with the story’s veracity. I will also interpret the meaning of that story differently. That story will be tainted and I will likely never realize that you, the listener, caused that change. On the other hand, even if we had a negative engagement (you disagreeing about the facts of a story if we both experienced it) does not change my self-perception.
So what does all this work do for the listener? Well, it is complicated. Storylistening is not simply altruistic. It can be entertaining, enlightening, and fulfilling. But specifically when listening to trauma, it can affect the listener’s own health. But when the roles of listener and teller are interchangeable and the work of “narrative sense-making” (PDF) is shared, positive benefits arise for everyone.
That is a lot of power flowing both ways, but it does not end there.
Listening small
All of the research mentioned specifically focuses on classic storytelling — recounting incidents and their meanings — but that structure is not necessary for storylistening to occur. It can happen even in the everydayness of life, in those conversations and interactions both online and offline.
Some academics conceive of the difference as Big Stories vs. Small Stories. Big stories are those that have all of the framework of a traditional life story, including overarching themes and episodes that hold the framework together, which renders a stable, coherent, autobiography.
Small stories develop in brief interactions with other people and the world and do not amount to a classic, structural “story.” Thus, any autobiography would be quick to shift and change based on context and interaction, which renders a, “this is who I am in the moment.”
You might sense the dispute that arises between the two perspectives. I absolve you of this concern. Both perspectives are valuable to storylisteners. Much of what has been presented so far is a big story perspective, but small stories help us envision a very special way to listen.
Small stories appear in the chatter of life. Friends and family update each other on their week. A quick text tells your partner you will be late getting home. A barista asks what your plans are for the day. Listening for story in this realm means being present to the moment’s actions and speech while a larger image of a self coalesces over time. But it never becomes solidified.
We are creatures in flux, and listening for the small stories of the present and recent past is the ultimate act of presence in the moment. All of the styles of listening mentioned above are necessary, but the desire to cohere the story into a clear image is diminished. Bringing order to the chaos becomes less important than staying focused on how a story is emerging.
The effects of this kind of listening are just as profound. These “narratives-in-interaction” are shared tellings, the distinction between teller and listener blur. Stories flow in all directions, they mingle and influence one another, they rise and fall with the interactions. Because Small stories are new, flexible, momentary, they are highly influenced by whoever and whatever engages them. Listening and engaging actually create the story in real-time.
Big stories are a mountain, a stable base of self upon which the movement of daily life rises and falls. Small stories are coral reefs, a living thing made of many living things, whose nature is to change.
We begin by listening in the moment, being fully present to the “you-now” that speaks. Where it goes from there is a negotiation between the tellers and the listeners.
