Listening = Love

Jan 26 / Anne Lowry Pharr
As of this article’s publication date, I’m in the final months of Companioning Center’s two-year Spiritual Direction Formation and Training Program. To say this time has been transformative would be an understatement. So, if you’re unsure about whether to engage in this opportunity, I humbly encourage you to give it thoughtful consideration.

The Companioning Center’s curriculum includes many gifts, not the least of which are countless opportunities for participants to tend to our spiritual journeys. We do this tending both individually and communally, with the cohort engaging in regular rhythms of holding space for one another as we process what we’re discovering. Whether I am being listened to or doing the listening, I find these times of group spiritual direction to be profoundly sacred—a place to offer and encounter God’s abiding love in palpable, tangible ways.

While engaging in this listening practice, I’ve been reacquainted with something that often happens during human interactions. I’ve noticed, again, how hearing someone else's experiences can cause me to remember similar instances from my own life. When someone describes a moment of joy, for example, I may recall a time when I felt joy. When I hear about a friend's sorrow, I am likely to remember my own feelings of sadness or grief—perhaps even revisiting the events that stirred those emotions.

Recognizing such intersections between my own and another’s experiences is a typical part of daily social interactions. There are few days when I do not, at some point, notice how my experience connects with another’s. While commenting on such connections may lay groundwork for deepening a relationship, it can also pull the focus away from the other person. The spotlight of my attention shifts — from the other person to me.  

Shifting the spotlight from my friend’s experience to my own may be brief and inconsequential. Yet whether this occurs in superficial interactions or more vulnerable conversations, it can create barriers. When I liken my friend’s experiences to my own, I may be more likely to think I know how they feel. If my friend faces a difficulty I’ve also experienced, I may offer suggestions or advice—thoughts that seem helpful, but perhaps only to me. Such comments can bring my friend's sharing to an abrupt and premature ending. And though I may be attempting to build connection, shifting the spotlight may cause my friend to understand her story, her perspective, and possibly her own beliefs as less important, less interesting, or less knowledgeable. She is likely to leave the conversation feeling corrected, minimized, devalued—and, understandably, no longer comfortable sharing her experiences with me. All of this can occur without my even recognizing my blunder.

To increase our cohort’s awareness of when spotlight shifts can occur, our instructors provided a helpful illustration. They invited us to bring an invisible basket into each listening session: “When you begin to notice your thoughts moving from what your friend is sharing to your own experiences,” said Kathi, “this basket is where you can place those images and ideas. The container—and its contents—will be available when the listening time is completed. But setting your thoughts aside for the moment allows you to return your full attention to the person speaking.”

Learning about this invisible basket has changed the quality of the sharing that happens as our cohort engages in group spiritual direction. Remembering the basket helps me avoid shifting the spotlight of my attention away from my friend and onto me. And as my cohort members and I practice using our baskets, we grow in our ability to offer generous attentiveness to our own directees.

Prior to entering Companioning Center’s program, I was asked by my pastor to offer Soul Care Circles (small group spiritual direction) in the context of a local church. My experience in these Soul Care Circles reinforces the Companioning Center’s training: since it’s human nature to shift the spotlight in our daily interactions, sustaining an others-focused presence is challenging. Even with intentionality, such listening is counterintuitive. It calls for regular practice and, sometimes, additional tools.  

To help Soul Care Circle participants foster a welcoming, generous presence, I created a simple, one-page handout that I give each person as we open our gatherings. In addition to reminders about our intentions, the handout includes prompts that guide us as we listen to one another.

The first part of the handout includes the following prompts:

  • I can relate. I felt the same way when . . . .
  • Your story reminds me when I . . . .
  • You must feel / think / want . . . . 
  • You should try . . . .

When listeners focus on these topics and think about replying with comments that echo the above prompts, the spotlight of our attention is shifting from the friend’s story to our own.

The handout’s second section, though, invites group members to notice the following things about our friend as she shares:

  • facial expressions
  • tone of voice
  • body language
  • repeated words or phrases
  • thoughts, longings, and/or actions that reflect God’s image.

These prompts offer concrete ways for listeners to give our attention to the person who is speaking.

After our friend has shared, the Soul Care Circle observes a few moments of silence, prayerfully reflecting on the second set of prompts.  

Then, perhaps beginning with one of the following phrases, we may offer a brief response to what our friend has shared:

  • What I hear you saying is . . . . .
  • As you shared, I noticed your . . . . 
  • I see glimmers of God’s beautiful character in these thoughts, longings, and/or actions you shared . . . . 

I think I recognize God’s loving provision and/or presence in these thoughts, longings, events, and/or actions you shared . . . . 

In Holy Listening: The Art of Spiritual Direction, Margaret Guenther explains that remaining "disinterested" in my own story allows me to better offer "loving attention" to someone else’s. This means I can "put [myself] aside"— my similar or different experiences, my opinions, my suggestions, my reactions —"so that [my] total attention can be focused on the person” sharing, so that I am "fully present" (1992, Cowley Publications, 3, 45).  

Whether it’s in the context of spiritual direction or during a conversation that remains on more of a surface-level, choosing not to shift the spotlight from the person speaking to myself is spiritually formative: it’s a practical way to live out the reality that every person I encounter is—at the most fundamental level—God’s beloved image-bearer. When I’m fully present to that person, I affirm her intrinsic, unchangeable value — a reality that is the foundation of Christ’s gospel, the good news that every person needs to experience and believe.

Anne Lowry Pharr
A wife, daughter, sister, and mother of two adult children, Anne Lowry Pharr holds a B.A. and M.A. in English from Baylor University. In addition to serving as an English and First Year Seminar faculty member at Pellissippi State Community College, she was First Year Seminar program coordinator for many years and also collaborated with colleagues to develop Partners for Student Potential (PSP), a college-wide initiative which worked to deepen and broaden faculty and staff awareness of the challenges and strengths represented by college students.

Recently, she completed Renovaré's Institute for Christian Spiritual Formation, and she is currently pursuing the Companioning Center's Certificate in Spiritual Direction. Her writing has appeared at InterVarsity's The Well and Red Tent Living. Anne's passions include heartfelt conversations, writing, music, reading, exercise, Henry the havanese, and​ a great cup of coffee — preferably first thing each morning.