4-minute read

I was recently at a workshop where we were asked to bring a bowl.  Not for eating, but for a shared exercise.  We separated into pairs.  Our instructions were to sit facing each other and for one person to tell the story of their bowl and why they chose to bring it.  The speaker had about five minutes and the listener could not speak or interrupt.  Easy enough.  Except it wasn’t!

I had so many questions pop up as my partner was telling her story and I couldn’t ask them!  I am a curious person.  I usually ask lots of questions.  It helps me understand the story.  Or so I thought.

My husband sometimes gets frustrated when he is telling me a story and I interrupt with questions.  When I tell him I neeeeeed the answers to understand the story; he tells me I don’t.  That I could just listen without interrupting, and that I’ll understand more when he is done telling the story.  I thought he was wrong.  I thought we were having a two-way conversation.  But not all interactions are two-way conversations.  Sometimes a person just wants or needs to relay a story without being interrupted.  

After I was forced to sit and silently listen to my partner talk, I realized that my silence actually allowed her to tell HER story.  Her whole story.  Everything she wanted and needed to express.  There were lots of pauses and opportunities for surprises in where the story was taking her.

If I had been able to ask random questions as they popped into my head, I would have hijacked her story and perhaps taken it in a completely different direction.  My direction, not hers.  And likely not to where the story ended up taking her. 

At the very least I would have distracted her.  As Kate Murphy¹ says in You’re Not Listening: What You’re Missing and Why it Matters, “Good listeners know there is usually more to the story than first appears and are not so eager for tidy reasoning and immediate answers … [they] avoid asking about incidental details that knock people off their train of thought and feeling state.”

The bowl exercise allowed me to clearly see my husband’s perspective.  I don’t always need to understand right in the moment.  It feels good to be heard.  To be able to tell a story without interruption and to full attention.  And if the answers to my questions are not answered in the full telling of the story, I can ask them later.

The recognition that my harmless questions were not only interrupting, but perhaps hijacking, the conversation was a big revelation for me.   And then the next, maybe bigger, revelation came as I was writing this.

I remembered a podcast where the presenter said that if someone asks you an uncomfortable question to purposefully throw you off balance, you can take back control by asking them – why do you want to know that?  While my innocuous questions likely would not have been uncomfortable for the storyteller and would not have been posed in a backhanded or mean way, why DID I want to know how many siblings she had or where her grandparents lived? 

Was it pure curiosity or was it a bid for control?  Kate Murphy¹ says, “While you may feel a sense of urgency to tell people how you feel [or in my case, ask questions], it’s not always helpful.  You are putting your ego ahead of the other person’s vulnerability.” 

Ouch!  Maybe my seemingly caring curiosity is also about taking control away from the storyteller?  Maybe I have a hard time taking a back seat and just listening.  Maybe I do put my ego ahead of the other person’s need.  After all, hijacking is literally taking control of where something is going and “diversion to a new destination.”

So, why would I do that?

Perhaps because with questions, I have the illusion that I can direct the story where I want it to go.  To safe places.  I’m still in the driver’s seat.  No upsetting surprises. According to Sean Corne², “there’s control, which is the safety mechanism of anyone who has experienced trauma, and then there is liberation … and the space between control and liberation is surrender.” 

With practice, I’m hoping to truly surrender to the unknown more and to open myself up to real curiosity.  To see where the story is going without trying to direct or control it or understand every little thing about it.

Fortunately, I get to practice this every day, in every interaction, with every person I speak to.  

¹ You’re Not Listening: What You’re Missing and Why it Matters by Kate Murphy

² Seane Corn – “Steady Breath, Steady Heart” Insights at the Edge podcast