Thanksgiving … and the Power of Listening

The recent election has helped many of us realize what kind of “information bubbles” we live in. If we mainly get our news from social media, it is easy to think that everyone in the country thinks the same way we do. After all, all the news we see supports our view of the world!

As such, we are shocked when an election shows that not everyone sees the world the way we do.

Thanksgiving is one of those times in the year we come together with others, including family members who may have a different political view or may have voted in the election differently than we did.

So as this holiday approaches, it seems to be an appropriate time to explore what it means to truly listen. Here are some suggestions:

• In challenging conversations, can we pause, become curious, and ask questions?
• Can we wait until someone is finished speaking before we share our thoughts?
• Can we as Lao-Tzu suggested, “Seek first to understand, then to be understood”?
• Can we take the time to see from another’s viewpoint, as if we are in their shoes?

This does not mean we give in or do not share our views, only that we lead with curiosity.

Thich Nhat Hanh says this about the practice: “Deep listening is the kind of listening that can help relieve the suffering of another person. You can call it compassionate listening. You listen with only one purpose: to help him or her to empty his heart.”

We invite you to practice this with us over Thanksgiving … knowing we will likely fail many times. We will interject our views, we will interrupt another, we will make assumptions, arguments will happen. But we can always return. We can always go back to curiosity.

We wish you a wonderful Thanksgiving and hope to see you at a Wisdom 2.0 event in the near future. Our next gathering is December 6th in the Bay Area.

Happy listening!