When Someone Listens Deeply to You
I'm taking another coaching course (I can't stop learning!) from Cultivating Leadership called Growth Edge Coaching. It's described as, "Delve into the richness of adult development, expanding your ability to support others to navigate life’s complexities. Equip yourself with the insights and skills needed to lead, coach, and engage with other humans with depth, fostering meaningful growth and transformation in both your personal and professional life."
In our first session, they started with this poem. And I just love it!
When Someone Deeply Listens to You
By John Fox
When someone deeply listens to you it is like holding out a dented cup you've had since childhood and watching it fill up with cold, fresh water.
When it balances on top of the brim, you are understood. When it overflows and touches your skin, you are loved.
When someone deeply listens to you the room where you stay starts a new life and the place where you wrote your first poem begins to glow in your mind's eye. It is as if gold has been discovered!
When someone deeply listens to you, your bare feet are on the earth and a beloved land that seemed distant is now at home within you.
For me, it represents the listening for and holding space I do with my clients while in a coaching session. It also reminds me of the client-to-coach speaking ratio. In a coaching session, some say the ideal speaking ratio for a coach to a client is 2-1, with the client talking twice as much as the coach. Personally, I think the ratio should be closer to 80-20, with the client talking 80% of the time. Some coaches even say they can have powerful conversations when they talk less than 20% of the time.
I'm curious, when in conversations, how often do you listen versus talk? And do you see the benefit of listening more?
Here's a little practice to take on if you wish to be so bold this next week: Practice deep listening. Have a conversation with a family member, friend, co-worker, or colleague, and see if you can listen 80% of the time. To take it even further...check in with the other person and see if they noticed anything different. How it felt to be fully heard.