An interesting book by Emily Kasriel on Deep Listening

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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.

 

My spiral was adapted from this art deco image at OpenClipArt.

 

Contrails are real, chemtrails are nonsense

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Back on June 27, 2020 I blogged about Contrails or chemtrails? I said that chemtrails were a conspiracy theory and nonsense.

 

There is an article by Benjamin Radford on July 25, 2025 at the Skeptical Inquirer titled EPA Debunks Chemtrails. And there is a second article by Mick West in the January/February 2024 issue titled What Happened to Chemtrails?

 

A news release from the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on July 10, 2025 is titled EPA Releases New Online Resource Giving Total Transparency on the Issues of Geoengineering and Chemtrails. There is a 4-page pdf on July 18, 2025 titled Contrails Fact Sheet. And there is a web page updated July 22, 2025 titled Information on Contrails from Aircraft. It has sections with the following titles:

 

What are contrails?

How do contrails form?

How long do contrails last?

Research on the environmental impacts of contrails

What are ‘chemtrails’?

What is intentionally sprayed from airplanes?

Are contrails related to geoengineering or weather modification?

What is HAARP and is it related to contrails, geoengineering or weather modification?

 

Yet there is an article from Kate Plummer at Newsweek on June 3, 2025 titled Map Shows States Trying to Ban ‘Chemtrails’. Nine are Florida, Kentucky, Louisiana, Minnesota, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Tennessee, and Texas.

 

Earlier on March 19, 2021 Lana Del Ray released an album titled Chemtrails Over the Country Club that has a Wikipedia page. Her title song, which has a YouTube video, says:

 

“Me and my sister just playing it cool
Under the chemtrails over the country club.”

 

Finally, there is an article by Ron Smith at the Royal Aeronautical Society on April 14, 2023 titled ‘Chemtrails’ debunked that has sections titled:

 

Contrails or ‘chemtrails’?

Iridescent contrails

How to see and photograph iridescent contrails

 

An image of contrails was cropped from one at Wikimedia Commons.

 

 

Not everyone fears public speaking

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There occasionally is a silly claim that everyone fears public speaking. It assumes that everyone has the same fear as you do. That shows up on page 195 of a 2020 book by Ahmed Adamu titled You Are a Leader:

 

“Everyone has a fear of public speaking: think of good public speakers, they all have fear of public speaking, but they still make good public speeches.”

 

It is in an article by Dana Wilson at TroyMEDIA on May 24, 2022 titled Overcoming the fear of public speaking:

 

“Everyone has a fear of public speaking. No matter how famous, we all have been uncomfortable speaking at times.”

 

It also can be found in another September 19, 2022 article at Tony Yuile Coaching titled Public speaking anxiety:

 

“It’s said that everyone has a fear of public speaking (aka stage fright).”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

But when you look at detailed results from surveys, like the Chapman Survey on American Fears, you will find that less than 70% fear speaking. Two bar charts shown above are from my June 1, 2025 blog post titled An article on stage fright by David Pennington claimed public speaking was the #1 fear in a Chapman Survey, but ignored their nine other surveys where it was ranked from #26 to #59.

 

 

A brief football story by coach Bill Belichick about an unintentional gesture

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I have been skimming therough the 2025 book by Bill Belichick titled The Art of Winning: Lessons from my life in football. A great brief story from it is on page 129 (and in Google Books):

 

“Carl Banks was a player who prepared at an elite level. Honestly, I had trouble keeping up with both Carl and Tom – they were very detailed in their preparation. Carl had the best key I had ever seen. When I was defensive coordinator for the Giants he found a tip on John Spagnola, who played tight end for the Eagles in the mid-eighties. Carl studied the stance of Spagnola and discovered that, incredibly, Spagnola wiggled his fingers on running plays and did not wiggle them on passes. When Banks told me about this, I thought it was a joke. It was not. I looked at all the end zone film and the key held up. I couldn’t believe it. After the first series of each game against the Eagles, Carl would come off the field with a big smile, saying, ‘He’s still doing it.’ Carl had incredible recall and would come into our Tuesday meetings armed with information: stats from every game our opponent had played that year (not to mention previous years) or memory of a play from ten weeks ago that he wanted us to have a game plan for.”  

 

In poker that sort of gesture is called a Tell.

 

The cartoon was adapted from this one at Wikimedia Commons.

 

 

An often parodied, thirty-three-word, unpunctuated poem from nine decades ago

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Back in 1934 family physician and poet William Carlos Williams wrote a poem which I have shown above in a form that might have been taped to the door of an icebox. It even has a Wikipedia page.

 

Originally it was:

 

This is just to say

 

I have eaten

the plums

that were in

the icebox

 

and which

you were probably

saving

for breakfast

 

forgive me

they were delicious

so sweet

and so cold

 

It appeared on the wall of a building in The Hague. There is an 80-page 2012 book by Gail Carson Levine titled Forgive Me, I Meant to Do It: false apology poems that describes how to do a parody on pages 22 and 23:

 

“Imagine his wife coming downstairs in the morning after dreaming about those plums all night and waking up tasting them. Possibly she opens the icebox door (no refrigerators then) and finds a poem in the neatly washed-and-dried plum bowl. Maybe she laughs or maybe she goes for a very long walk or maybe she seats his breakfast and then writes her own false apology poem-

 

Which you can do too. Many poets have written them, following the form invented by William Carlos Williams. But don’t even consider writing this kind of poem unless you can get yourself into a grouchy mood. You will be wasting your time.

 

If you do decide to write, your poems should be mean, or what’s the point? Mine are, and William Carlos Williams’s is too, in its subtle way. He’s glad he got to those plums first!

 

You don’t need a title because William Carlos Williams has given you one, which can be repeated endlessly until your reader is completely sick of it. You also don’t need a new ninth line, because that’s always the same too: Forgive me. Notice that there are three stanzas, which you may agree are quite enough, and each stanza is four lines long, which you may think are four too many. The first stanza states the horrible offense. The second stanza describes the effect of the offense. The last stanza begins with ‘Forgive me,’ and continues with the false apology, because the writer is not sorry at all. There is no punctuation (how nice), and the beginning words of only the first and ninth lines need to be capitalized. The line beginnings and endings substitute for capital letters and punctuation. Normally, capitals and punctuation help the reader understand, so be careful to end your lines in a way that is very clear, unless you want to confuse your reader, which might be the wisest course.

 

Also, think about the rhythm of the lines. After you’ve cleared everyone out of the house, read your stanzas aloud to help you decide where to end a line. Funny poems are still poems.

 

You don’t have to follow William Carlos Williams’s form exactly if you don’t want to. I haven’t. You can add or subtract lines and stanzas. Or you can abandon the form completely and write false apology poems in your own cruel way.

 

For those of you who lack an ounce of mean and are reading this book only for research into the psychology of unpleasant people, you can write a real apology poem. However, even this will not be possible if you are too angelic to have anything to apologize for.

 

Whatever way you do it, have fun and save your poems!”

 

An example of her parodies (from page 8) is:

 

This is just to say

 

My bulldozer

has flattened

the thorny

hedge

which

you mistakenly

expected to sleep behind

until the prince came

 

Forgive me

I’m charging tourists

ten dollars

to visit the castle

 

She also has versions based on stores for children like Jack and Jill (page 14), Jack and the Beanstalk (page 28), Red Riding Hood (page 55), Rapunzel (page 62), and Humpty Dumpty (page 66), etc.

 

There is another 48-page book from 2007 by Joyce Sidman titled This Is Just to Say: Poems of apology and forgiveness. She has apology poems written by a class of sixth graders and responses to them. One example from page 8 is:

 

This Is Just to Say  

 

I have stolen the jelly doughnuts that were in the teacher’s lounge

and which you were probably saving for teachers.

 

Forgive me. They were delicious, so sweet and so gloppy.

Too bad the powdered sugar spilled all over my shirt

and gave me away.

 

By Thomas

 

I got started on this topic by finding a blog post from David Murray at Writing Boots on August 22, 2025 titled Friday Happy Hour Poem (and a true story). His parody is:

 

 This Is Just to Say, by Eddie [the dog]

 

I have eaten the chicken shawarma (I think it was)

that was on the picnic blanket and which my owner

subsequently made me understand you were surely

eating for dinner with your young daughter,

when I ran over from playing with the other dogs

in the middle of Smith Park because I smelled something good, and ransacked before you and the little girl knew what hit you.

Forgive me. It was delicious, so moist, and so savory.  

 

 

Spouting Nonsense: a fifth Spoutly for Donald J. Trump based on his May 19, 2025 claim to have come up with the 420 years old word equalizing.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

An article by Meredith Kile at People on May 21, 2025 titled Trump says he just invented a ‘new word,’ which is now the ‘best word.’ It’s been in use since the 1500s. She quoted:

 

“Basically, what we’re doing is equalizing. There’s a new word that I came up with, which is probably the best word,” he said.

“We’re gonna equalize, where we’re all gonna pay the same. We’re gonna pay what Europe’s gonna pay,” he continued.

When you look up the noun equalizing at the Oxford English Dictionary, you will find that it first was used back in 1605, which is 420 years ago. And the transitive verb equalize shows up in 1595, and also in 1590 spelled as equalise.

Back on October 1, 2023 I blogged about Spouting Nonsense: a fourth Spoutly for Donald J. Trump based on his recent interview for Meet the Press.

 

 

 

This blog had another gigantic spike in page views

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Occasionally this blog has a spike in page views. As shown above, the latest gigantic one with 32,316 page views occurred on August 21, 2025.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Another chart for all time (really just for most time), shown above, reveals a peak of 110,170 page views for the month of June, shown as 6/30/25. Note that there has been a total of 2,929,093 million page views. There have been 2,940 posts, so the average is 996 views per post or roughly a thousand.

 

Back on December 23, 2024 I blogged about How should we present a huge number like the two billion dollars earned by the Taylor Swift Eras tour? In an December 28, 2024 update I noted a peak of 5,231 page views. And on September 1, 2023 I blogged about how On August 26, 2023 this blog had a gigantic spike in page views with 27.6 times the annual average. That day there were 12,295 page views.

 

I belong to the Pioneer Toastmasters club in Boise, Idaho which has 28 members. On August 21, 2025 over a thousand times the number of my club members viewed my blog.