Listen Up
An essential life skill I know I need to work on is being a good listener. Staying quiet while someone shares at their own pace is often challenging for me, and I frequently find myself interrupting to finish their thought or to share an idea that I’m too excited to contain. That’s why I paid extra-close attention when Maria Shriver’s insights about deep listening showed up in my inbox last month. Sharing her wisdom about this essential art right before the holidays feels like perfect timing.
In Maria’s article—“Are You Listening?”—she explained that good listening requires patience and receptivity—a willingness to suspend our preconceived notions so that we can truly be open to hearing another person’s view and better understand their experience.
Maria wrote:
Beneath every argument lies something deeper: a hurt, a fear, a longing to be seen and heard. When we stop listening, those old stories take over. But when we listen deeply, we open the door to understanding and healing.
Listening well—be it in a relationship, at work, or in leadership—requires emotion, reflection, humility, and forgiveness…It slows us down. It softens our edges. It reminds us that the goal of listening isn’t to win—it’s to connect, to learn, and to grow.
In relationships, deep listening rebuilds trust. At work, it builds collaboration. As parents, it helps our children feel safe. As leaders, it turns authority into service. And in our democracy, it can turn division into dialogue.
Listening doesn’t mean agreeing; it means being willing to hear. It’s how empathy grows. It’s how we move from reaction to reflection, from fear to understanding.
Maria offered three simple, yet powerful, tips to help us listen better:
1) Listen before you respond.
“When someone shares a strong opinion, pause. Take a breath. Ask, ‘Tell me more.’”
2) Listen beneath the words.
“Try to hear what’s not being said — the emotion beneath the anger, the fear beneath the frustration.”
3) Listen to yourself.
“Notice your own fatigue, your fears, your instincts. When you listen inwardly, you respond outwardly with more grace.”
Maria believes that committing to listening in this way is what we must all do to heal our divisions, remember our shared humanity, and help foster peace both locally and globally. She wrote, “Listening, I believe, is how we begin to move humanity forward—one honest, humble conversation at a time.”
In his book, The Creative Act: A Way of Being, Rick Rubin—shared the following insights about being a good listener that I am also taking to heart:
Formulating an opinion is not listening. Neither is preparing a response, or defending our position or attacking another’s. To listen impatiently is to hear nothing at all.
Listening is suspending disbelief.
We are openly receiving. Paying attention with no preconceived ideas. The only goal is to fully and clearly understand what is being transmitted, remaining totally present with what’s being expressed—and allowing it to be what it is.
Anything less is not only a disservice to the speaker, but also to yourself…
So here’s to listening more deeply to the people we love, to those whose views are different than ours, and to our own voices within—this holiday season and always.
