Listening without doing: toward a deeper understanding of empathy

I’ve long believed that empathy, commonly understood as the ability to “step into another person’s shoes,” is crucial for communication. By being empathetic listeners we connect with people, identify with their experiences, and use that connection to guide meaningful conversations based on our shared understanding.

I’ve sought to cultivate empathy in my personal and professional life. But I recently learned that my understanding of empathy was missing something: the ability to listen and observe without offering advice, assurance, and sympathy.

I learned this through studying Nonviolent Communication (NVC), a style of communication developed by psychologist Marshall B. Rosenberg. (I’ve been doing an NVC course through the WISE foundation).

Listening with presence

In his book, Nonviolent Communication: a Language of Life, Rosenberg explains how empathy requires “listening with the whole being” and focusing attention on the speaker’s message instead of the thoughts that arise as a result of hearing it. I realized that this is actually tough to do because often the automatic response to what people are feeling and sharing (especially when it relates to their personal challenges) is to give advice and tell them “everything will be okay.”

It’s like there’s a natural reaction to just do something when confronted with another person’s vulnerability. But Rosenburg flips this on its head, saying:

“Don’t just do something, stand there.”

It sounds odd at first. But one thing that hit home for me was Rosenburg’s suggestion that as an empathetic listener, one should ask before offering advice. When I read through the list of common behaviours (Chapter 7 of the book) that diminish our ability to listen with presence, I found myself nodding and saying, ‘Yip, done that, and that, and that….’

Things that block empathetic listening

Some of the behaviours that Rosenburg identifies as obstacles to empathetic listening include:

• Advising - “I think you should do this….” (guilty)

• One-upping - “Sure, that’s rough, but I had a way worse experience….” (don’t think I do this much)

• Educating - “You could use this as a learning experience…” (guilty)

• Consoling - “Don’t worry, you did the best you could…” (guilty)

• Sympathizing - “Oh shame, poor thing…” (guilty)

Reading through this list and reflecting on my own style of listening, I realized that I’m prone to advising, consoling and educating. As I read the chapter, I replayed conversations in my head. For example, that time I advised a friend who was stressed out from work to “just go for a walk in nature,” or told someone who’d made a mistake, or regretted a decision, that it was “all part of the learning process.” Or, the classic, “I know how you’re feeling.”

The antidote, according to Rosenburg, is to listen to what people are observing, feeling, needing, and requesting (these four components are the crux of the theory of NVC) without immediately trying to “fix” the issue. This should give way to a deeper understanding of what the speaker is communicating, and allow them space to delve more fully into the feelings and unmet needs that underpin their experience.

That’s not to say we should listen like silent stones. An empathetic listener can reflect back their understanding of what the speaker is saying, through paraphrasing, to ensure they’re receiving the message correctly (there is a technique for this, which I won’t go into here). The trick is to listen, observe, and reflect without judgement and without activating any of the responses listed above. In this way, the speaker has the space to fully express themselves, while the listener gets a more rounded picture of what, exactly, the speaker is communicating.

There is still space for support

Listening with empathy does not preclude us from providing support or insights that could help the person we’re listening to. I wouldn’t feel good about just listening to someone who is going through a tough time, nodding my head and simply reflecting their feelings and needs back to them.

What I learned through NVC is that the time to ask whether someone needs advice or support is after they’ve fully expressed themselves and can see their feelings and needs have been understood.

In class the other day, I practiced empathetic listening using the NVC method with a fellow student. Listening for what he was observing, feeling, and needing required intense concentration. I noticed that when I was reflecting what he’d said back to him, and guessing what his unfulfilled needs were, I spoke slower than usual, carefully thinking about what I was saying and taking care to be as accurate as possible in my appraisal. When we swapped roles, I felt like he was really hearing me, as I described my feelings of stress around not having time to juggle the NVC course with my work commitments. Our conversation felt like a shift toward a more mindful way of engaging.

The conversation with my classmate was short but powerful. It made me think that to be an empathetic listener requires presence, thoughtfulness, and, importantly, time — which is something we don’t give each other enough of in today’s frantic world.

To cultivate the type of empathy Rosenburg describes takes practice. But I’m going to work on it. As a start, I’ll be watching myself closely, trying to catch phrases like “Don’t worry, it’s all a learning experience” that pop out of my mouth unbidden before I’ve given the person I’m listening to the time to fully express themselves.

Image credit: Bacila Vlad.