Welcome to the
Listening Project

I am not absolutely clear about how or why this idea came to me (I have a really bad memory, (except for faces). I can tell you that from a young age (by the time I was a middle teenager anyway) I felt that people did a relatively poor job of listening to one another. By young adulthood, I had made the conscious decision that I would prioritize listening in my life. That is not to say that I decided not to speak (you can verify that with people who know me). It just means that I decided that when I was with other people I would not treat what I wanted to say as a priority; that I could listen to others and not lose anything by doing so. I believed that in listening, I would learn, and when I spoke, hopefully what I said would be more meaningful for what I had heard from others.

It seems almost natural that we interrupt one another before whoever is speaking can finish a complete sentence, not to speak of completing a full thought. When someone tells us something that mirrors or contradicts our own experience, we tend to prepare a response in our minds while they are still speaking, rather than seeking to truly hear and understand the full import of their words and thoughts. We often begin our response even when we know that they are not finished.

I believe that, as human beings, we have a deep need to be understood, to have others see and understand us as we see and understand ourselves. In my mind, this is what it means to ‘connect.’ From my own experience, I believe that it is possible for us to really listen to one another, and gain an understanding of the person who is sharing with us, whether that person’s history, experiences, and beliefs do or do not reflect or resonate with our own. I believe that in doing this – in really listening, and in responding with thoughtfulness, and sincerity, and ideally with compassion – we are capable of learning about others, the world, and ourselves; we are capable of expanding our own capacity for empathy; and we are capable of growing as human beings. 

Simply put, I believe that through listening and connecting we can: shed fears or anxieties we hold about reaching out to ‘strangers’; cast off the stereotypes we live with; build bridges across the boundaries that we have created and which divide us; reduce the loneliness that many of us feel; and gain insight into what it might take to create broader ‘communities’ in our lives. 

That may seem like a lot to ask of listening, but my intuition tells me that we have just begun to explore its power. That is why, in my mind (and on the poster that I put out explaining what I’m doing) I call it an ‘experiment’. When I began, I did not know if the project would be meaningful to people, or if they would stop and read about it, not to speak of joining me to talk. I talk below about my experience so far.

The Listening Project has been a profound experience for me, and I don’t use the word ‘profound’ lightly. When I first sat out in a public place, I had absolutely no idea if anyone would stop, would read about the project, would ask questions and/or join me. What I believe I understand about the project, after doing it for a relatively short while, is that when people stop and read about it and take it in for a moment, even if they don’t sit with me, the idea of it appears to be powerful and meaningful to many of them. I think this is so because, as others have reflected back to me, what is being offered is a relatively rare opportunity: to be able to speak, face-to-face, with another human being who does not know you, who will listen to you, who will do so without judgment, and who will offer their thoughts (and encouragement) only after being asked to do so. 

What I mean by those words ‘powerful’ and ‘meaningful’ is that most of the people who take the time to read about what I am doing react with understanding, appreciation, excitement, supportiveness, and/or a sense of wonder, sometimes mixed with mild bewilderment that this is an actual thing. The most common question I’m asked — not surprisingly — is some variation of ‘Why are you doing this?’ Some people who join me want to talk about the project itself, about why I am doing it, how I thought of doing it, what it means to me, what people want to talk about with me, what I hope to do with it, and other questions along those lines. 

Many people want to share something about their lives. People speak with me about difficult decisions they are facing, such as being at a crossroads in their lives. Some want to talk about difficulties and challenges that they have experienced, how they have emerged from those experiences, and how those things have changed or shaped them. Some speak of difficulties or challenges that they are currently facing, including their anxieties about the world as it is today, and their concerns about the future. One person sat down and told me that he went out for a walk because he was depressed. He faced a number of ongoing difficulties in his life. We spoke about his life and the project for half an hour. When he left, he hugged me and told me that I was a ‘miracle.’ People who have joined me have been extremely generous in expressing their appreciation for this idea and this opportunity.

I know that I am not a miracle. I know that in fact I’m a simple person. What I understand, from all the lovely words that people have spoken about the project and directed toward me, is that we as people have a hunger to connect, to be able to speak our hurts and our hopes with someone who will listen to us, who will not judge us, and who projects a sense of real care, even when that care is expressed without words. 

I have learned from these experiences. I have gained patience in just sitting and watching the world go by. I have learned to have no expectations regarding how a session will go and how many people will stop and read my poster, or join me. I have learned that my preconceptions about who will stop, and read, and join me were wrong, and so I have learned to more closely question, and to release, my own assumptions. I have felt, and feel as I write this, a deep gratitude for the time and attention and thoughtfulness that people have shown in exploring this opportunity with me. This experience has helped me to hone my own sense of what I believe is important in my life, and how I can best use my time and energy.

As I’ve described above, this has been a deeply meaningful, moving, and energizing experience for me so far, and I hope to be able to engage in the work of the Listening Project for years to come. However, I think the project can be much more than one little person in one small corner of the world hitting the streets with a couple chairs and a poster a couple times a week. No one owns ‘listening’. There is no patent on this idea. I can imagine that one of the greatest joys I would ever experience would be walking down a street one day and for the first time finding someone with two chairs and a poster offering this experience to me. 

Perhaps you would like to be that person. I’m not saying that this is something that anyone and everyone would want to do or should do. But this is a big world, and I have no doubt that there are many people in it who would love this experience, and would love to give others the chance to share and be heard. Perhaps you are one of them. I think it takes a bit of courage to start this. Setting up in a place where a bunch of people are going to walk by, look at you (or ignore you completely), maybe stop and look at your sign for a second, or 13 seconds, or two and a half minutes, and maybe join you, or more likely move on, or ask you a question from a distance and then move on…You get the idea. My approach to this is that I am simply in the world attempting to offer people a modest gift. Whether and how they react to that offering has little or nothing to do with me. I wish them well, whatever that reaction may be. 

I have come to a belief, or understanding, that there is value simply in being out in the world, sharing this message about listening. While I hope that people will stop and read my poster and join me if they feel the desire or need, I understand that there is value simply in sharing this message, giving people some food for thought about what it means to listen and communicate and be with other people in this world. I may be an idealist, but I will admit to having a vision of the future in which one might move about the world and regularly find people in all kinds of places sitting with a couple chairs and a poster, offering this connection. This does not feel like an impossibility to me. 

While I do not confuse the interaction I am providing with formal therapy, I sense that it can be therapeutic:, it can ease pain, efface the immediacy of loneliness, provide a place for another person to get greater clarity about something that is concerning them, and perhaps – perhaps – inspire someone to seek to address their needs in a more abiding sense. If many of us knew that we could have access to this kind of contact in our neighborhood or community on a regular basis, I wonder if we might find that our communities and societies were healthier for it?

Do you need to be a specific type of person to do this? My sample size, as you know, is very small so far – me. What I think I understand about this, what makes it work well, is a listener who in some general sense likes people – likes meeting new people, wants to be a positive presence in the lives of others, has some innate sense of care for other people, while being absolutely respectful of other people and their boundaries. Obviously, you need to be someone who can listen, who can focus on the verbal and non-verbal communication coming from another person and really take it in. And – to make a judgment – I think you need to be able to do this without judgment.

People will tell you about their lives, things they’ve done, experiences they’ve had. Most of the time they are not seeking your judgment. They are seeking to process their own experiences or thoughts or beliefs; in a sense they are asking you to witness their life, their experience, their reality. Doing so in stillness, without judgment, and with compassion and empathy, is the gift that you are offering. This is about building a relationship of trust with someone you do not know over a matter of minutes. If you are present in this manner, in my experience, it works. I still experience that as a kind of magic.

If you have gotten this far, and think you might be interested in doing this, please carry on below, where I will discuss how I did, and do, the Listening Project.