There are 3 levels of listening;
Level 1 - when you are in your own head and hardly listening, other than to yourself.
Level 2 - when you are engaged and listening to the other person
Level 3 - when you are locked in, can hear everything, totally listening and aware of sub plots and meanings to what they are saying. You are 'In the zone'.
Liken it to going to the movies. You get into the cinema, sit down, the trailers come on. You are watching but your head is on the journey, the seats, the bloke in front, the popcorn. You are in level 1.
Then when the movie starts you are watching, listening, getting into the action - Level 2. Engaged
As it continues you get totally submerged in it. You are aware of the characters, the plot, subtle messages the director is saying. You can take everything in. Here you are in level 3.
Makes you think doesn't it? Which level do you operate in? How many times has your missus said, 'are you listening to me?' As you scroll the important Facebook updates, "Of course darling" you lie, '"can you say it again?"
I've been a terrible listener all my life. I spend an inordinate amount of time in my own head. It's a nightmare sometimes. Trying to second guess what the other person is thinking as I'm trying to have a conversation. Makes it tough. Especially when you're thinking they are thinking, "You're a fucking idiot!" - low self esteem projection conversations are a real bummer.
I'm also a terrible 'cutter inner'. Interjecting into people's sentences before they have a chance to finish. Or worse still finishing their sentences for them. My girlfriend gets so annoyed with me for doing this.
It's not my fault. When you spend a majority of your time in your own head and believe yourself to be right 99% of the time and are impatient. How can you wait for a person to finish what they are saying? It's like a chess game and your conversation and mind is 5 moves ahead. Good job I don't do cocaine anymore. I'm pretty sure nobody would stand a chance of getting a word in.
I've also been predominantly brought up by Welsh women. They constantly but in. When my Mum, Nan and Aunt Gwynie were in full flow no sentence was ever finished. They would be there for 8 hours and not one of them had finished a story or sentence. It was extraordinary. You had to but in just to get heard. I learnt off the masters.
Interestingly they didn't do it in an egotistical self obsessed way. They did it in a welsh matriarch gossipy way. Big difference.
So why do I talk of levels of listening today? Well I had a great example of it at work.
I'm the new boy so it is constant meetings to try and get up to speed about the organisation and everyone in it. Meeting after meeting of listening to people. It's good practice and a real god send I did the recovery coaching course and learnt about listening.
Trouble is I hit a dip at lunchtime in a meeting with 3 other people. I was observing the meeting. It started off OK, but after 30 mins I could feel the Wall of tiredness cascading over me like a monster wave. It started with the eyes going. You know when you're driving and you feel like you need to shut them? It was exactly like that. I kept blinking and refocusing but the room started moving and I felt like I was hallucinating. Fuck me it was only day 2!!! I can't hallucinate on day 2. Wait a week at least!
Then the stifled yawns came. I hid them behind my hand as I put it to my chin to try and look more engaged, enigmatic and interested. Not sure if I got away with it. Then the watering of the eyes came so it looked like I was crying. It was grim. I did consider excusing myself at one point but I battled on.
At this point I was entirely in level 1. All I could think was, "I bet they're thinking, God he looks really tired". My head was gone, good job I wasn't asked anything. That truly would have been curtains. But I was in a level 1 world of pain.
I manfully fought the tiredness. Shifting in my seat, placing hands on my chin, asking a question to try and shake myself out of the fog. Then after 10 minutes which felt like an hour, the eternal yawn went and I picked up. Yes!!! I went into level 2 and 3. Triumphant and with new found energy and confidence I even found myself asking some sensible and relevant questions. Holy shit. He's back!! I silently punched the air and finished the meeting in a unfeasibly good mood. An interesting experiment. Though I'm pretty sure the people in the meeting thought they'd just spent an hour with a crackerjack.
The rest of the day was spent solely in level 3 and I found myself enjoying work. Oh God, all those years of having a pop at people about workaholism may come back to bite me on the arse.
So It's farewell to Homes Under the Hammer my friends and hello 7am commute. How times change so very quickly and unexpectedly.
There's a tube strike tomorrow so that should be a right royal laugh. You can feel the stress levels rising in the London air. I'll have to pull a massive meditation out of the bag to get through it, either that or give Bob Crowe a bell and see if he's got any room in his Brazillian villa on holiday. You have to admire the man really. he truly doesn't give a fuck. One has to admire such brazen balls. I haven't seen brazen balls that big since St John Ford copped a football straight in the knackers in 1984 from 5 yards in Cox Green Under 13's Semi Final of The Maidenhead schools cup. I can still hear that scream today......it sends shivers down my spine. I wonder if the swelling's gone down yet?
Together We Are Stronger
Nicholas Evans
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