Transform Relationships with Deep Listening with Emily Kasriel

Tati: If you’ve ever walked away from a conversation replaying what you should have said or feeling like you had to solve the other person’s problem. This episode is for you. Today I’m joined by Emily Kriel, A BBC, journalist, mediator, and author of the book. Deep Listening. We’re exploring how listening can become less about pressure and performance, and more about presence.

You’ll learn how to stop overthinking your responses, make space for deeper connection, and feel calmer and more present in conversations that usually leave you drained.

Hi. I am here with Emily Kasriel and I am excited for this conversation. She is coming out with a book, deep Listening, and is going to be sharing with us more about how you can deeply listen to deepen connections and improve relationships. And, and I think that the, this is a topic that is especially important, not just in this day and age, but also.

For every person to know to really deeply connect with others rather than just kind of the surface level of co conversation that, that we tend to go into. And so I’m really excited to have you here as a guest. Emily,

Emily: thank you so very much. I’m very excited to talk to you Ta Tanya.

Tati: So can you tell me more about what got you into this topic of like wanting to write a book about.

Topic of deeply listening.

Emily: Well, a mixture of two things. I’ve been an executive coach for well over a decade accredited, and also a workplace mediator, but I was running a big season across the BBC called crossing divides, getting colleagues to tell stories about people engaging across differences, race, class, religion, age, and politics.

Because so often the media tells stories of conflict and we normalize the idea of conflict. And through doing this big project, I came to realize I needed to know more. How could I help people have these constructive conversations? How could I brief my colleagues to have conversations? For example, I was talking to 39 local radio producers across England.

They needed to find people to discuss. Should we have a statue of Margaret Thatcher or should we not have a statue of Margaret Thatcher or a meat eater talking to a vegan? And I needed to know more, so I started doing more research first at LSC where I was a practitioner in residence. I. Then at King’s College London, where I’ve been a senior visiting research fellow, talking to psychologists, reading a lot of academic literature.

And then in 2022, we recruited a thousand people in a hundred countries in order to see if my deep listening training actually worked. And what we found out is that people, when they practice deep listening. Felt safer to express themselves and more understood. They felt more connected. And this is important.

They felt open to reexamine their own attitudes and that’s why deep listening can be so powerful. And this was demonstrated. I got some academics on board and we did a control group, and it was just being recently published in a peer review journal. A journal of Applied Social Psychologist. You are well-known bedtime reading not, but it was great to have it verified academically that this approach actually has those impacts and that’s why it’s so brilliant and helpful for everyone in their ordinary lives.

Tati: Yeah, that, that’s excellent that there’s a lot of research or you, you’ve done research like you’re saying to support these claims, and I’m curious what, what do you think it is that makes it hard for people to listen to others?

Emily: I think that most often I. We are performative. We kind of pantomime the act of listening and what we’re actually doing is preloading our verbal gun with ammunition ready to fire because we think it’s expected of us to have a brilliant next question or a challenge.

We feel sometimes a lot of pressure that we should be able to come up with a solution. That’s why we think people are sharing their problems with us or we try and connect and the way we try and connect is by saying so hard to hear. You’ve got a tough boss. ’cause do you know what happened to me? Have you ever done that?

I certainly have, yeah. Because we think that we are showing our empathy, but of course, what we are doing is changing the spotlight from them to us. And when we have these type of behaviors, and even worse, when we just interrupt, we hal the person from not only speaking their thoughts, but even from having fresh, new ideas and the person is left feeling dismissed or used.

Tati: Yeah, and I think what you’re sharing that tendency to put pressure on ourselves to have a perfect response, or even you, you talk about these listening traps and one of them is. That solve and sort that you were mentioning that like feeling like when somebody’s coming to us, okay, I need to fix their problem.

This is something that I used to do a lot, I think a lot of my listeners tend to do because they just want to fix things for people. Can you talk about, you know, why this trap is so common and, and how to get out of that?

Emily: Actually, I did some research and I found out that these, um, k people who live in the Kalahari and who are quite similar to our ancestors, because they are people who are hunter gatherers, if somebody else’s basket is empty, they want to help and they share what’s in their basket.

So we’ve evolved as humans in a way that not all other animals do to help each other, and we think that we can help people by sorting out their problems. In fact, as you said, we feel pressure. The onus is on us to sort their problems out. So we are not really listening. We are listening only long enough to get what we think is the essential information before we interrupt and come up with a solution because we think that’s our job.

And what’s so exciting and liberating is realizing that in fact, when we provide that critical space for somebody to think and reflect themselves, they’ll often come up with a solution. That is bespoke for them and they’re far more likely to implement in it because they’ve got skin in the game. They’ve evolved it themselves to match their unique circumstances.

Tati: Yeah, I think that’s interesting and, and it seems counterintuitive because I think a lot of times we can feel as though we need to be. Doing more in order to help somebody. And so it can feel uncomfortable to give somebody space to actually think and to just be present for their conversation. How can people be more comfortable with the discomfort that comes up when it within that pressure to feel like you always need to?

Be doing more or like and be comfortable with leaning back.

Emily: I think you’re quite right. We feel that we add value and it’s the pressure that we put on ourselves. And I think once we realize that, we realize we’ve got some choices, and I hope through the book that I can inspire people to recognize that by.

Stepping back and providing the space for the other person to think more openly. We are actually co-creating the narrative with them, but in a very different way, which gives them agency rather than when we come up with solutions, we deprive them of agency. And often when you’re talking about our family or our colleagues at work, or if you are a team leader by providing the space for other people to think thoughts that they had dared not imagined.

That is an incredibly positive, exciting, and impactful role that you can play in the lives of the people around you, that they will be truly grateful for far more than if you had just given them a pat response, which you think you ought to be able to provide.

Tati: Yeah. So it sounds like it’s about giving people the space to feel heard.

To to feel like what they have to say is maybe valued or important. Would you say that is one of the reasons why least listening deeply can be so impactful?

Emily: You are absolutely right because most of us go through our life not feeling heard and what a lot of us feel, some essential shame that we are not good enough, that our ideas aren’t valuable, that we should be better, we should be perfect.

We should be able to come out with a perfectly articulated response that’s even better than the person who’s made themselves. And all of this self pressure doesn’t allow us the space to be open. Instead, it’s very contracting. And when we are in a contracting mode, we also project a kind of defensiveness that the other person picks up on, and so they don’t feel open to express themselves.

And knowing how much you can do for the mental health of the people around you, when you deeply listen. And there’s a lot of research into that if you can enable them to feel truly heard and valid. In their ideas that is so impactful, and I must quickly say, this does not mean you agree with them. A lot of people are very fearful of listening, especially when they disagree because they think that they’re somehow gonna be contaminated by these difficult ideas.

And instead by truly listening, the research that I did with a thousand people in a hundred countries shows that the speaker will start to reexamine their own attitudes and other research evidences that when people feel truly heard, they dial down. Their attitude extremity, so they feel less strongly because they are less defensive.

Their blood pressure lowers, their heart rate lowers, they become more open to understand their different perspectives, which can both be valid.

Tati: Yeah, that, that’s very interesting. And I think especially nowadays where opinions can be very polarizing, that a lot of times what people. Can do, I think, is stay in their echo chamber and feel like I don’t wanna listen to anybody else that has a different attitude or or opinion than me.

And so again, what you’re sharing is really a counterintuitive approach to. Connecting with other people.

Emily: Yeah, absolutely. And I think that once you, you know, you talked earlier about the discomfort that some of us can feel when we’re practicing something new, when we are holding the space, rather than coming up with a quick response.

But what’s so exciting is that once you start doing it, it becomes a little addictive because you can have conversations with people in. All sorts of situations. For example, just a couple of weeks ago I was in a pharmacy and I was picking up some drugs for my daughter and they asked me, and there was a lady just sitting on the plastic chair behind me waiting for her drugs.

And the pharmacist said, what’s the date of birth of your daughter? And I went, um, uh, 3rd of July, 2021. And she said, are you sure? And I said, oh wait a minute, I’ve got it wrong. It’s actually 2001. And the woman behind me said, goodness, how can you not know the date of your own daughter, how old she is? And I replied, you are quite right.

What a silly thing to have done. And then we had a bit of a chat with this lady waiting and she was talking about age and the fact that her grandmother was in her nineties and she was so happy ’cause she just celebrated a big birthday. And I said, that sounds fantastic. She says, yeah, it’s great. And I had a sense in the way that she said it’s great that there was something else going on.

So I responded and said, sounds a bit ambiguous that on one hand you’re excited for your grandmother’s birthday, and on the other hand, I don’t know there’s something else. And she said, yes, I think that I might die before my grandmother. And then she shared more with me and started crying about her condition, and then she apologized for crying and I had a sense that she hadn’t been heard, that she needed to share that.

And after that, she thanked me. She thanked me for that opportunity of just being able to talk in that kind of unusual. Context, but it’s those moments that we can offer people, which can be so profound and so meaningfully, including to our own family and to our colleagues. And I would say there’s an ethical dimension here because as you saw with that example from that lady, I.

People when you deeply listen to them and pick up on things, might share more than they had intended. And if, for example, this person was your employee, you need to treat what they’ve shared with confidence or you need to say, whoa, are you, perhaps you don’t wanna go any further here. Or you might need to refer them to somebody else if you don’t feel what they want to share is, you know, you are ready to bear that.

Tati: Yeah. I, I think that’s an important caveat that, that you’re sharing there. And, and I think that’s an excellent story. And it sounds to me kind of, it’s like being a detective somewhat and, and uncovering what could be. Underneath what, what somebody is sharing. And I think that kind of brings us to, you talk about these eight steps of deep listening and, and, uh, you know, you’ve touched on some of them of, in what you’ve shared, but I’m curious if you can just talk more about what those steps are.

Emily: Sure. So step one is about creating the space because it’s the bare minimum for somebody, and this is not only for important conversations, the conversations that matter, it’s not if you wanna ask somebody for a cup of tea or something, but for those conversations that matter, it’s important that somebody feels safe to share, but it also means looking at the sound and the light.

If it’s a. Echoey cafe where voices are being played on each other or if the person can’t see so well, so sidelights, which are, um, more yellow rather than very bright overhead. Blue lights make people feel more relaxed and then more comforting, fabrics or wood, or even a walkin nature, which really is very good.

Even better if you are near some water. Step two is about listening. To yourself first, because in the book I write about, unless you’ve listened to yourself first, you’re not really in a place to listen to the other person. So you know, perhaps that person makes you feel insecure. Perhaps they remind you of your bullying older brother, and therefore you are listening to them.

You are not listening to your colleague. Instead, you. Back there as a 5-year-old listening to your 8-year-old brother tell you off yet again, and taking that time to really understand what’s going on for you. Maybe it’s an unacknowledged agenda, something that you feel deeply uncomfortable about. At least if you can acknowledge it to yourself, you’ve got some choice to be able to put that aside when you are listening to that other individual.

And step three is about being present because if you’re not present, if you are distracted by your phones, even visibly, I. If it’s there, even without notifications even turned off, it will distract you. Research shows, but you are also distracted by the voices in your own mind, and therefore setting a bit of time before that difficult conversation if you are having 360 feedback or receiving it, you know, spending that time.

Becoming present, returning to an anchor, thinking about what makes you feel truly relaxed in order to be open to the other person so they can share more. And step four is about what you project onto your speaker. So it begins with a gateway of curiosity because if you can assume that you don’t already know.

What the person is going to say, which we so often assume that we do, it makes a world of difference because if you are truly curious, the person will share more and that gives you a foothold in order to increase your empathy and your respect. And that is so important. Step five is about the gaze tricky on a virtual call, which is why I’ve shrunk your photos.

So I can both look at your face and look at the camera. But there’s so much research, and this is if you, unless you are on the spectrum or you are talking to somebody from the First Nation community, uh, elder. You know, there’s so much research around the importance of the gaze and how we can feel held, and it’s not a kind of fuko gaze in, you know, there to make you feel like you are an imp prisoner, imprisoned by your own mind.

This is a warm, inviting, accepting gaze of unconditional positive regard for the person, not necessarily for their ideas. And step six is about holding the silence because giving people space to think and have new ideas is so important. People often say to me, when I train people around the world in businesses and in conflict zones, that they feel truly uncomfortable when they first practice silence.

And yet it is the thing without exception, they tell me has made the most difference to their lives. Because for example, even in. In when you are having a negotiation, that research evidences that when both sides are asked to use silence, they come up with many more creative win win solutions. Both parties benefit rather than zero sum.

If you win, I lose. And step seven is reflecting back, but it’s not the kind of reflecting back You might have practiced in an active listening course where you kind of parrot back or you say the last word. This is truly. Using the whole of you to listen to the whole of them and. Feel in your core what the person is really thinking, what they are perhaps feeling, but not expressing in words and, and, and reflecting back their feelings is so important.

And they’ll say, yeah, and you know, you haven’t got it quite right. And that’s fine because it gives them the opportunity to think more deeply and clarify. Both for you but also for themselves. And that’s why listening is such a beautiful gift to give people to allow you to go to step eight, go deeper, to really uncover that narrative in conjunction with your speaker, that deeper narrative of their, you know, of their motivations, of their values, about what’s really going on for them.

Tati: Yeah. So I can hear there’s a lot of powerful. Points in, in what you shared and in that process. And I can imagine somebody listening might be feeling overwhelmed, especially my audience where they’re like, okay, I need to do it all. And, um, how can I take notes and do all of these steps perfectly? So I’m curious, could we do a, a deep limited listening demonstration?

Emily: Sure. That sounds great. And I would say it’s absolutely not about doing anything Perfect Indeed. Deep listening and reflecting yourself on your practice, it’s all about being kind to yourself. It’s about recognizing that you are doing your best in that moment, and when you become distracted or you become angry, or you become defensive.

It’s recognizing that and letting it go so you can return to present both in the moment and afterwards. So you, the invitation is to be aware if you are beating yourself up and let that go. So let’s do a demonstration. Let me ask you, Tatanya, what food reminds you of home?

Tati: Good question. So I would say any sort of.

Cuban food. My parents are Cuban and so Ropa Vieja, um, which is like a shredded beef in the tomato sauce that, that’s one of my favorites. And, and with Cuban bread, that, that reminds me of home.

Emily: So I’m sensing that your home is your parents’ home and their own heritage being Cuban, and you are enjoying. That shredded beef and tomato sauce with that Cuban bread, it’s important to get the details right for you to feel truly at home. Is that, is that right?

Tati: Yeah, exactly. Yeah. I, I guess when you said home, I, I thought of my heritage, you know, my, my parents’ house and, um, and that, just the flavors and, um.

Because it’s not something that I cook myself, so it’s something that, you know, I might have if I go to go to my parents’ house, or that just reminds me of childhood. I.

Emily: And so it’s a sense of something that was in the childhood in the past, something where you felt warm and protected and that it brings you all those sense.

You talked about, I had a sense as you were, you know, thinking about it, you felt those flavors in your mouth and that sense of being protected by your parents in that safe space is, is that right?

Tati: Yeah, exactly. Yeah. It’s, it’s this feeling of like, just, I think you put it well being, being protected and feeling that comfort of home.

Emily: And I also sense perhaps the kind of missing that you aren’t able to create that in your own home. You don’t cook it, but you have to go back to that childhood to have it. Is there sort of distance is, is that right?

Tati: Hmm. Yeah. Yeah. You know, I, I think that I’ve never actually for some reason never tried to make these foods myself.

I, I’ve thought about it one time I did make, um, croquetas, which are like, um, basically kind of like mozzarella sticks, but with ham and like, um, breaded and fried, which are my favorites as well. And. After that, I, I hadn’t really tried, but I think having this conversation is inspiring me to, to maybe go to my mom, ask her for some recipes and, and try, you know, starting to make these things so that I can carry on those traditions.

I,

Emily: and that’s important to you both sort of culturally and also to connect you with your childhood. You talked about safety and comfort. And if you were able to do that yourself, that would be kind of empowering. And yet, traditionally it’s been your parents’ role. It’s what they do, and the notion that you do it yourself is something a little new is, is that right?

Tati: Yeah. I think you put that very well. Yeah. I think it’s something that maybe. That aspect of creating, making this food, I haven’t taken that on myself. And so I think that would be something that might be rewarding and help to connect me with my culture more to, to take on some of this and, and start to like learn how to do it on my own.

Yeah.

Emily: Well, thank you very much for, for sharing that with me. How did that feel to be heard in that way?

Tati: Yeah. Thank you for creating the space for it. It, it felt great. It felt like, like you were saying before, it, it felt like I had the space to explore things that maybe I wouldn’t have thought about or, or even considered before.

And just by, you opened it up with a very kind of basic question, but, but I think it, it got too. Uh, deeper levels and, and really got me thinking just in the way that you responded to me and gave space for, for me to think through things. Roughly, how many questions did I ask you there? Uh, maybe like four or five.

I don’t know. I wasn’t counting.

Emily: Well, actually, I just asked you one question because I’m a journalist. If I had asked you questions and journalists need to think a lot of pressure on themselves to come up with great questions, I would’ve said so. Where did you grow up? Was it in Miami? I would’ve said, what?

So your parents, when did they migrate to Cuba? So tell me more about this shredded beef. What’s the recipe? There were so many questions I wanted to ask, but I would’ve been taking you down my path. What I was interested in and what I tried to do was authentically capture what the words, the notes between the words and your feelings, and do my best to authentically offer them back to you without trying to manipulate you and get you go down any avenue.

Which is about you having the steering wheel. And some people say to me when I was training lots of coaches, that this was liberating that they didn’t have to come up with a great question so they could reduce anxiety and relax because they realized that they could give the control over to the speaker.

For the speaker. And obviously in a work situation, sometimes you do need to ask certain questions. Deep listening is not all or nothing. You know, there’s so many elements that you can, you know, read more in the book about and sprinkle where you think appropriate in your own lives and practice and reflect on that.

Tati: That’s interesting ’cause it’s interesting that I thought you had been asking questions, but really a lot of it, I think thinking back was you. Kind of reflecting back and, um, exploring what it was that I was saying.

Emily: Yeah. But on your terms, you know, I mm-hmm. I just, and it’s interesting ’cause it’s not just using your intellect and that’s why I write in step eight about the third ear.

And in fact, I was drawn a picture, I illustrated the book, which was really fun for me ’cause I love drawing and it kind of calms me down and it’s, it’s a thing that I feel very comfortable with. And the third ear. Which I’ve drawn in the sort of just where the heart is. It’s like you use your intuition to think, and not even the word think is wrong, to kind of feel what’s really going on for the speaker here, and to offer it back with humility for you to say, no, not really.

It’s not that, but it is this, or, yeah, that’s right. You have captured it. And then if you noticed, you said you have captured it and then you, on your own accord went deeper.

Tati: Yeah, no, I, I think that’s excellent and I’m, I’m curious. For somebody who is new to this concept, what kind of situations do you think this could be helpful in?

Emily: I think if you are a parent listening to your kids, you know, when they come back from school, you say, how was school? And they go, yeah, it was all right. And you kind of move on and you can hear from the way they say it. It was actually wasn’t really all right, there was stuff going on. And rather than say, so what happened?

You can say, you know, just reflect back what you’re hearing. Sounds like it was kind of a tough day. Is that right? I. And they may decide to share more, or rather often later when you’re in the car side by side, often good, especially for teenagers or they come back and say, yeah, my teacher picked on me.

And it was horrible. And often as parents, we try and cheer someone up and our kids up and we say, I’m sure it wasn’t that bad. I’m sure the teacher was also picking on other kids. It’s just the way you feel or whatever. And what? Surprise, surprise, the kid doesn’t feel heard. And instead we can reflect back and say, sounds like you had a tough day.

And it felt to you as if the teacher was really picking on you. Notice my wording. I don’t say the teacher was picking on them. And it’s the same if it’s a colleague. I remember when I was at the BBC and I was a beginning manager, people wanted to complain to me about their pay or their opportunities or all sorts of things.

And I didn’t wanna listen to them because. I was frightened. I couldn’t do anything about their challenges and their problems. So instead I cut them off. Surprise, surprise, they left feeling dismissed and frustrated. Whereas if I had really listened and understood and then explained about what I was able to do, or perhaps referred them to somebody else.

Everything could have been different.

Tati: Yeah, I think those are some great examples and it makes me think of, you know, particularly in the workplace where I think a lot of times people will leave a job because of their manager or because they’re feeling I. Unsupported or unheard. And you know, what you brought up speaks to, I think what we were talking about before where, when we’re not in that place of solving somebody’s problem, I think a lot of times it can be difficult for people to be with other people’s discomfort, right?

Mm-hmm. And then not do anything about it. Because I think just sometimes being in that place is like. Well, what do I do now? How do I handle this? I want to make them feel better. We want to like get them out of that place of, of feeling like they’re struggling, but we can’t always.

Emily: I think you are so right, and I think there’s two reasons we find it challenging.

First of all, I. Being with discomfort, whether a colleague, a friend, a child, somehow can be triggering For us, we feel that there’s a kind of, it’s spreading to us. We feel our own membrane being permeated by these uncomfortable feelings, so we try and block them. The other thing is we want to cheer someone up.

We want to help. We think that’s our job. And of course when we do that, I’m sure it’s not so bad. I’m sure plenty of other people have had that situation. I’ll tell you what happened when I was in that situation, they just feel like not. Heard they feel we are not acknowledging the difficulty, and I have to say this is a lifetime of work, learning to be comfortable with discomfort and difficulty.

I don’t think it’s something you just do it like that because, but if you can do it in small ways, if you couldn’t recognize. That you are uncomfortable. You can’t cope with the anxiety of one of your colleagues. It’s triggering for you. It enables you to realize it’s your stuff, not theirs. And you can return to being present or you can say, I really want to talk to you, but I’m just not in the right space right now.

Can we schedule tomorrow or can we schedule a walk in nature? For example, even a park or you know, somewhere where you don’t feel that pressure, where you can just look at the bigger expansive picture in nature can be so helpful for dealing both with the anxiety of the person you are talking

Tati: and your own.

If you’re enjoying this conversation and you want more support to feel calm, balanced, and confident in your daily life, then I invite you to join me free at my weekly ish [email protected] slash newsletter, I share practical tips, personal insights. And resources designed specifically for high achievers managing stress and anxiety so you can feel more grounded and in control.

Again, that’s calmly coping.com/newsletter. I’d love to have you join us now back to the episode. Yeah, I think those are some great suggestions and I’m curious, what if we have. A situation where maybe somebody is in a, a relationship or any sort of dynamic where they feel like they aren’t being heard.

And I can imagine when talking about all these lists, this listening, people are like, okay, that, that sounds great and I’m interested in trying this. What about when it comes to expressing how I’m feeling and, and what’s on my mind

Emily: in an ongoing relationship that you have, whether at work or at home or in your community, it’s really important that you also get your opportunity to feel heard.

And I think that if you listen first, the other person, and you reflect back and you demonstrate to your speaker that they’re being heard. There’s early research, which suggests they’re gonna be far more likely to feel warm and pathetic connected and be open to listen to you. However, if you feel you are in a relationship where consistently you are not getting heard, you might need to contract and say.

I really wanna listen to you, but I also wanna get a chance to speak. Can we perhaps, what about you talk for 20 minutes and then I talk for 20 minutes? Or you talk today and I talk tomorrow? Because it is important if we are consistently feeling silenced, to be able to also have our opportunity to speak out.

Learning how to deeply listen is not a ticket to spend the rest of your life in the back row seats of the cinema. Only observing other people. It’s very, very important that we have the opportunity to articulate our own thoughts and to come to new ideas. But listening to ourself first and listening to the other person and being in a place to listen to them is often what will enable them to be in a better place to listen to you.

Tati: Yeah, I think that’s, that’s very well said. And And I’m wondering just as. If you have any suggestions for situations where, like you had touched on earlier, if somebody is having a conversation with somebody they disagree with, or maybe it’s, it’s a difficult conversation, um, where there could be a tendency for things to get like heated or, or there to be disagreements.

What are your suggestions for somebody approaching a conversation like that?

Emily: First take time out to become present and listen to yourself first as we were talking in that, um, step two. So you are in a better place to be open to them. But sometimes even if you do that in the middle of conversations, you’d sense you are becoming defensive or angry.

’cause we all do that on automatic. Yeah. So hard to break those patterns and then say. You can just have a bit of silence. Uh, I spoke to Mariando, who runs Wikipedia. She’s the CEO of Wikimedia, and she says she always has a glass of water by on her desk, so she feels that she needs to have time to calm and to get back into control.

She just. Has a sip to allow her to recenter. And it might be an anchor of yours. It might be something. I was talking to Tara Brack, the um, psychoanalyst and and meditator, and she writes a lot about the anchor. Something to get you back to being present when you are going skew with, but unless you notice what’s going on.

’cause most of the time we don’t even notice. We are just. Angry and we are responding without thinking. We are reacting, I should say, rather than responding And having that moment to be aware of what’s going on gives us options to return to being centered. And sometimes it’s just being authentic and saying, I just lost it a bit there, but actually I’m really curious to understand how you came to this perspective.

Can you tell me more? There’s always an opportunity to begin again, whether it’s within a conversation or within a relationship. Every moment is a moment to begin again. And I think that’s really liberating for people when they fear messing up because we all mess up to mess up is human.

Tati: Yeah. And I love your compassionate approach and, and I’m hearing that there’s a lot of, just starting with mindfulness, you know, starting with being aware and being curious and understanding your own judgments and understanding.

What you are coming to that conversation with so that you can be aware of them and not have them like unconsciously affect you and the way that you’re showing up.

Emily: Yeah, that is so important. It does take a bit of time and it does take practice, so don’t beat yourself up if it doesn’t work. I would say practice deep listening on a kind of easy conversation where you don’t have big disagreements first, so you can fine tune your deep, deep listening muscle before you attempt it with conversations where you think differently, but it gives you so many options.

I was just talking to a friend of mine who is having a real issue with, with her partner and just on the phone with her. I said to her, well, what’s really going on in their mind? And once she had articulated to me what her partner was thinking, suddenly she said, I feel so different. I understand now. I feel I have choice.

And it was so exciting. It felt like she had, she was liberated not to be stuck in a very difficult relationship, which was really, really bothering her. She could affect change and that’s what’s so exciting in the way that we listen. We can affect everything about our relationships, if only we give it the chance.

Tati: Yeah. So it really sounds like a powerful tool, and I think you shared many impactful insights and tips for listeners to begin with deep listening, and I love that you shared that tip of starting small, you know, starting with a low stakes conversation rather than trying to go straight into. The, the deep end, so to speak.

Emily: Yeah, absolutely. And take the time to reflect back. What deep listening steps did you try, if any, or did you even have the early intention to deep listen before it went out the window? Treat yourself with compassion and reflect back and say, what did I do brilliantly? Start with that. Even the intention to deeply listen and what perhaps could I do better?

Or ask for some feedback and say like I did after the conversation with you. How did that feel like for you, that conversation? I’m curious.

Tati: Yeah. Yeah. So this was really an excellent conversation. I’m curious, do you have any final thoughts or, or suggestions or a place to start for somebody who’s curious about engaging in more deep listening to deepen their conversation or connections I should say?

Emily: Well, I hope in my book that I provide people with inspiration stories and illustrations and a lot of guidance for them to make sense of it in their own way. It’s not prescriptive, it’s not all or nothing, but start with something like just being curious that can by itself can be hugely impactful, I believe.

Tati: Mm-hmm. Yeah, I love that. And I’ll of course leave links to your book and, and, uh, ways to connect with you in the show notes. Is there anywhere specific that people can go to learn more about you and connect with you?

Emily: Yeah, on my website, emily cael.com there’s a lot of, um, articles that I’ve written about deep listening in different contexts, and they can also connect with me and they can also follow me on LinkedIn.

Tati: Excellent. Great. Well thank you so much for this conversation, Emily. It was a pleasure.

Emily: Yeah, it was such a pleasure to talk to you. I’m very excited by the idea of people listening to this and really changing the way they listen to others. ’cause we’ve got such a mental health crisis going on and a crisis of polarization, and I feel if more people can be inspired to deeply listen to those around them.

We can do something to make a dent in both of these big global challenges all over the world.

Tati: Yeah, I agree. Very well said. I think that, you know, when it comes to the mental health crisis, the isolation that we’re feeling, the polarization, that those are things that are drawing us further apart and I can see how deeply listening can really help to connect us more and, and draw us closer together.

Emily: Yeah. And improve our own mental health at the same time, and that feels fantastic. So thank you so much.

Tati: Absolutely. And good

Emily: luck, all the listeners on your own deep Listening Journeys.

Tati: Yes, thank you so much, Emily. Okay. All the very best.