Deep Listening

When I meet a couple who live together and are happy, I propose that they set up a regularly structured time of deep listening to help them stay happy together. Deep listening is, most of all, the practice of being present for our loved one.

musicians for example, have been trained to listen with absorptive attention to musical sounds, but that does not mean they are able to listen in the same way when a person is talking to them.

Listening without some degree of intimacy isn’t really listening. It’s passive and transactional rather than active and engaged. Genuine listening is a bit like driving on a rain-slicked highway. Speed kills. If you want to get to your destination, you’re better off decelerating and occasionally hitting the brake. The ultimate idea, she says, uncor

I suggest instead the use of action verbs to capture something that we can see or hear happening—something that can be recorded with a video camera. “Listening” occurs inside a person’s head; another person cannot see whether it is happening or not. One way to determine that someone is actually listening is to have that person reflect back what had