By Barbara Dickinson

If you would like to listen to the audio version of this blog, you can find it on YouTube.

• Blog Post
• Excerpt from Janet Klein’s Book

This is a particular favorite topic of mine. I have begun to notice a certain kind of felt sense that arises in a conversation where one or both of the speakers are only telling, not asking.

I am a storyteller! I love to tell stories. Sometimes my stories are entertaining, sometimes they are disturbing. The problem is, sometimes they are not welcome.

Why? Well for one thing I did not ask the listener if they wanted to hear a story. For another thing, I may be telling a story that occurred to me after listening to the other person. 

In Interactive Focusing we practice empathic listening. In all the forms of Focusing I know, we are listening to sense exactly how it is for the other person, so that we can accurately and empathically reflect. We are not in it for our own stories; we are not even in it for our own feelings. 

We cannot do this if our body is poised to tell our own story as soon as the person we are listening to takes a breath. 

The next time you are engaged in a conversation, see if you can notice how much telling and how much asking, or even reflecting, is going on in the conversation.

Why asking?

The answer is complicated! (Isn't everything?)

In the first place, asking a question such as, "Can you tell me more?" is a way to express genuine interest in what the other person is saying, and what else they might want to say.

In the second place, a question like "And how did that feel for you?" gives the speaker an opportunity to go deeper into their story and their felt sense of it. 

But in the third place, a question like "Would you like to hear about a time something similar happened to me?" is bringing attention back to what the listener wants to say, instead of deepening the topic for the speaker.

Questions can be tricky!

A long time ago, I had a big wake up call when someone that I knew quite well at work, and was even friends with on the outside, gave me some feedback. She had just told me something dramatic that was unfolding in her life. As was my habit back then I took her topic and turned it into my own. I was completely unaware I was doing this.

In an outburst of frustration she said, "You take everything I say and make it about you!"

This was long before I had any Focusing skills. I was shocked and hurt. I have since learned that when I am shocked and hurt by another person's description of me, it is usually because there is more than a grain of truth to it.

That was the case here. I was in the unconscious habit of talking about myself. It was almost a superpower the way I was able to turn anything anyone said into a story about me. 

Thank goodness for Focusing, and especially Interactive Focusing. Through these two methods, I have learned to really listen to another person. I am far from perfect, but at least I know that the habit deserves lifelong practice.

If you would like to try a little exercise in pursuit of this awareness, take any conversation that you experience during the coming week, and notice how much telling is there? And how much asking or reflecting is there?

If you have a person close to you that you can speak with frankly, you could even mention this to them and make an agreement to partner in noticing the content of your conversations.

I do not recommend calling anyone out on too much telling. That certainly did not feel good when it happened to me!

But with someone I trust, who I know to be compassionate, being able to say "Oops! I notice that I am starting to tell instead of to ask you about what you just said." might set my feet on the path to healthier conversations. 

Seen on a Road Sign

For this blog post’s episode of “Seen on a Road Sign,” we have an excerpt from Janet Klein’s book, Empathic Felt Sense Listening and Focusing: A Workbook For Learning and Teaching (Copyright 1995 by Janet Klein), Pages 70–72.

This is a helpful follow-on to our discussions in the last blog post about conflict and empathic listening, as well as today’s discussion about telling versus asking. In this excerpt, Janet recounts a conversation she had with a longtime friend who had stopped showing any interest in what Janet had to say, only telling about himself and his projects. You can read the entire excerpt at the bottom of this blog post.

Changes Meetings for Exploring Interaction - NEW!! Watch Parties

We had our first successful “Watch Party” at the Changes Meetings for Exploring Interaction on Sunday November 24. We are watching 15 minute “chapters” of “The Interactive Focusing” video, starring Drs. Janet Klein and Mary McGuire, produced by Nada Lou. If you cannot make a Changes Meeting to join us for Watch Party, you can purchase the video by following this link: “THE INTERACTIVE FOCUSING”, Mary McGuire Ph.D.and Janet Klein Ph.D.

Up Next! 

In our next post, we will take a look at Interactive Focusing, Holidays and Family, exploring Janet Klein’s book for Teachers. “Inside-Me Stories: ‘Something is Happening Inside-Me!” is where she relates teaching the skills of Focusing to students to the early days of Social and Emotional Learning programs and the work of Daniel Goleman, author of “Emotional Intelligence.”

Questions? 

If any of this prompts a question or a comment, we would love to hear from you. Use our Contact Form at the bottom of the page to reach out.

Until next time!

• Our Monthly Virtual Changes Meeting for Exploring Interaction Schedule and Registration is here. 
• Watch our Demonstration of Interactive Focusing with Sandy and Barbara here.
• Read more about Exploring Interaction here. 
• Resources about Interactive Focusing are found here. 
• You can read the latest from Sandy about Smartview Conversations here.
• Read Sandy’s latest blog post on how Relational Neuroscience Compliments Focusing.

Excerpt from Janet Klein’s Book

Empathic Felt Sense Listening And Focusing: A Workbook For Learning And Teaching

By Janet Klein Psy D, Copyright 1995 by Janet Klein, Page 70–72

An Example of Real Life, Unilateral Interactive Focusing

The setting: I was with a friend I hadn't seen for over a year. He lives distant from myself. We are accustomed to keeping in touch by phone, usually every couple of weeks. For the last six months, we have barely phoned one another. I was finding the conversations frozen on his interests, and I was losing my interest. He was coming to town for a brief stay to attend family matters. He called, And we made plans to spend a few hours together. I found myself fearing the encounter, really imagining it would be boring. He would launch into what he was interested in, and I would politely listen on the outside while I was screaming in pain on the inside. Obviously the relationship was breaking down. I didn't want that to happen. We have an old friendship that has lasted through many periods of our lives. We have been supportive of each other in many difficult situations. We count on each other to be there. Had we finally just gone our separate ways and grown apart? I couldn't accept that. After spending a couple of hours of small talk, I could no longer bear it. I started to tell him what was going on inside of me. I wanted to speak from my felt sense, and I wanted to be listened to from his felt sense. He was completely untrained and Focusing so I just started telling my story as honestly as I could… speaking from the felt sense for the whole time and remaining in the Focusing attitude throughout.

The dialogue:

Janet: Walter, I would like to tell you something about how I'm feeling right now, being with you. Would you be in a place to listen?

Walter: Uh oh. It sounds serious. OK, go ahead. Out with it.

Janet: I think our relationship is hitting a snag. I realized that when you called to say you were coming to town, I was both excited and scared. I could see that inside myself over the past year, when you've called, I have had a difficult time listening to you. I know that I really care for you… That we have really gone through a lot together… And that I don't want to lose the relationship. But I have to try to get out what has been happening to me so you know where I stand, how things are for me right now with us. I'm just going dead inside. I can't catch the liveness I used to feel with you… I think I need to say more if you're OK hearing it.

Walter: Umm… I think so. 

Janet: What I feel it has to do with is the way you listen to me… Or the way you don't listen to me. I guess I just don't feel listened to anymore… That you are only interested in telling me about you and your project. You are so sensitive to your own life and how you are received by the world. I am always amazed at the little nuances you pick up… How you register everything that goes on around you. It's something I really value about you… That almost poetic way you describe parts of your life to me. Lately… When it comes to being sensitive to what I am telling you about myself, I just get more about you. I know I've said a lot. I don't mean any criticism. (Janet pauses to sense inside herself to see if she is still in the Focusing attitude.) I truly mean to give you feedback… And how being with you, even on the phone, has become for me. The only part I really know is I don't feel heard or that you care about my stuff anymore. I want to make it clear – this is my stuff – how I'm experiencing it. It is inside of me. I wonder if you could tell me about how it was for you to hear me? (Janet requests an interactive response – first asking Walter the empathic part – can he understand how she is experiencing what she just disclosed to him.) First, could you say how you feel about me when I say all of that? 

Walter: (At first he was confused.) I'm not sure exactly what you want me to address now.

Janet: When I just said all that about how I feel you aren't listening to me anymore, how did you feel for me? I guess I mean were you sad or upset for me? I don't mean how you felt for yourself when you heard it, but how you felt for me.

Walter: Well that is a little tricky. I wasn't sad. I wasn't upset for you. I guess what came to me was wow! How you've grown. I can remember when you would walk miles around the subject just to avoid any confrontation. That made me impatient with you. What you just said makes me really feel you've come a long way in the last 10 years. I guess I'm happy for you… Sounds strange but true.

Janet: That feels good to me to hear you say, that you feel I've really grown in the last 10 years and that you're happy for me. I guess I agree. (They both laugh.) ( Janet now asks Walter the second part of the interactive response – how it was inside of him to hear what she just said, how that sits inside him.) The other thing I was wondering was how was it for you to hear what I said about my not feeling heard by you. What did that touch deep inside of you?

Walter:  That's easier. When I held myself up to you and what you've done, I guess I felt, "Boy, I've got some catching up to do." I really saw myself sharply when you said I was sensitive to my own stuff and how my environment was for me. I really wasn't listening to how your life is for you. I knew you were right as you were saying it. I really have some growing to do. Funny. I was thinking I was at my zenith – really matured over the last five years or so. I was complimenting myself in a quiet way. I wasn't seeing myself very clearly. I feel it is a challenge, anyway, to work on being as sensitive to other people as I am to my own stuff. I felt two things inside of myself. There was an embarrassment about knowing you were right. And there was a place I know real well – it's a challenge and a funny little voice that says, "I can do it!" (The conversation went on a while longer, but this was the crux of it.)

Outcome

The relationship seems to have deepened after that conversation. Walter went back home. He called me soon after that. We talked about the excitement we'd felt during the conversation. Simple, clean and straightforward. He asked me with a joking voice, "Was that Focusing?" Both of us feel much more connected than we'd felt in years. Though our "interactive" conversation had been brief, it had been deeply felt by both. We feel we have a way of communicating now where both of us can be heard and both can tell our truth. There was empathy and mutuality.

Though parts of the model weren’t used in this interaction, the essentials of the model were used. There were no reflections from Walter, but there was genuine empathic listening.