I have been looking at an interesting book from 2025 by Emily
Kasriel titled Deep Listening: Transform Your Relationships with Family,
Friends, and Foes.
Pages 10 and 11 in the Amazon sample list the eight steps shown above. They are described as follows:
Step One: Create Space. [Pages 83 to 106]. You begin
by creating a place of psychological safety for your speaker. There are also
physical changes you can make to your environment, so a conversation feels
effortless. Your ambition: your speaker feels cherished and inspired to explore
new ideas.
Step Two: Listen to Yourself First. [Pages 107 to
132]. You can’t be open to listening to
others until you truly listen to yourself. This step explains how you can begin
to forge a more positive relationship to your family of shadows, the
unacceptable parts of yourself, so they no longer hijack your most important
encounters.
Step Three: Be Present. [Pages 133 to 157]. This step will delve into an elliptical yet
impactful aspect of Deep Listening – your presence, which transforms standard
listening into a profound encounter. We explore what presence is, and how you
can cultivate it to tackle the internal and external distractions that obstruct
true listening.
Step Four: Be Curious. [Pages 159 to 186]. Here we unpack the qualities you project
towards your speaker: curiosity, empathy, awareness of judgements and respect.
Acknowledging that you don’t already know what’s in the mind of your speaker
can be transformative.
Step Five: Hold the Gaze. [Pages 187 to 206]. This
step explores the power of a steady, warm-hearted gaze and other non-verbal
cues to communicate to your speaker that they are being heard. We explore how
far you can read your speaker’s body language, facial expression and tone to
understand what they are not expressing directly.
Step Six: Hold the Silence. [Pages 207 to 227]. In
this step we unravel the many types of silence and the reasons why you may
resist a pause. How can you use a rich stillness to centre yourself and signal
to your speaker your true respect, giving them the space to think, reflect and
share?
Step Seven: Reflect Back. [Pages 229 to 254]. Here we
uncover how to crystallise what you’re hearing and reflect it back to your
speaker. What are the clues that can guide you as you check your understanding
of the meaning of what your speaker has conveyed, directly and between the
lines?
Step Eight: Go
Deeper. [Pages 255 to 279]. This step explains how your listening can
illuminate what ordinarily is hidden – your speaker’s deeper narrative. This
deeper narrative is vital to understanding your speaker – and can include their
unexpressed needs and whether their emotions are in harmony or alive with
contradictions.
Each chapter has a list of takeaways. For example:
CREATE SPACE TAKEAWAYS – page 105
Find or create a place of safety | One where your
speaker will feel free from any physical or psychological threat.
Contract to cultivate trust | Be transparent at the
outset, clarify your intentions. Address how long the conversation is expected
to last and what happens with any shared information, if relevant.
Listen before you speak | Unless you are habitually
silenced in this relationship.
Get the physical setting right | Avoid glass and
metal, which create bad echoes, and seek out wood and fabric. Choose warmer
coloured diffused lighting and stay away from the harshness of overhead and
blue-white light.
Ensure you are both rested and fed | Before an
important conversation.
Adjust your position or take a journey | sit at an
angle of 60 degrees to your speaker or walk with a slow rhythm so you are in
sync with your bodies and each other.
Turn to nature | Nature can be an enriching setting
for a difficult encounter, providing soft fascination and dissolving stress.
Earlier Emily briefly described Deep Listening in a feature article in the Winter 2022 issue of the Stanford Social Innovation Review.
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