When the Whole Body Listens

Being fully present, without any distractions, is vital in serious conversations. Mimi Thian/Unsplash

Professor of clinical nursing Jessica Peck holds a doctorate in nursing practice and is the mother of four children, two of whom are still teenagers. She’s also the author of “Behind Closed Doors: A Guide for Parents and Teens to Navigate Life’s Toughest Issues” and host of the podcast and radio show “The Dr. Nurse Mama Show,” where she offers advice on raising children and other family matters.

On a recent broadcast, Ms. Peck snagged my attention with a piece of advice she offers parents seeking to improve communications with their teens: “Listen with your face.”

“Listen with your face” is Ms. Peck’s catchy way of telling us to communicate with the young by means of our whole physical being and not just with words. When a teenage son or daughter asks us for some help or attention, she recommends that we drop whatever we’re doing, sit down with them, and give them our undivided attention.

It immediately hit me that this counsel applies to countless other circumstances as well. If we’re washing the dishes, for example, and a spouse says, “I need some help,” we drop the sponge into the sink, wipe our hands on a towel, and say, “I’m here for you.” If an employee asks for a few minutes of our time, we put away our phone rather than sitting at our desk texting or browsing the screen while that person is trying to draw our attention to a problem in the workplace. Ditto for a friend whose mother has just passed away and who comes to us seeking consolation.

Unfortunately, our age of electronic communication has reduced the number of our face-to-face encounters with others, which, in turn, has diminished our listening skills. In “The Negative Impact That Growing Up Digital Has Had on Communication,” just one of several like-minded online articles, Michele Mavi reported that many millennials and others feel averse to in-person interactions. They struggle with making eye contact, they shy away from face-to-face conversations, they feel more comfortable with digital exchanges than with real conversations, and they prefer text and emails to phone calls so as to avoid conflict and conflict resolution.

Listening with the face, deliberately making ourselves physically available in the moment without distractions, signals to the speaker that we’re present and that we’re opening a door to their opinions, confessions, and confidences. It also makes us more aware of what they are saying, allowing us to read their faces and body posture—those physical expressions that so often underline the spoken word.

And once we understand that someone really needs our attention, the guidelines for this “whole body listening,” as a friend once called it, are pretty simple. We put away our cellphones and resist glancing at our watch or the clock on the wall. We don’t slump in our chairs, cross our arms, and stare into space as if bored out of our skulls. We react naturally to whatever is said, nodding in agreement or raising an eyebrow if those gestures are part of our equipment. We should never feign interest by way of our facial expressions. For one, our listener will likely discern that we’re acting a part and so detect our insincerity. For another, we are then focused more on our own artificial reactions rather than on what the person is telling us.

Bringing all of who we are into these serious conversations is vital. As writer and former ballerina for Britain’s Royal Ballet Deborah Bull has said: “Body language is a very powerful tool. We had body language before we had speech, and apparently, 80 percent of what you understand in a conversation is read through the body, not the words.”

By listening with the face and by making use of other frequently mentioned listening skills, such as avoiding interruptions and asking questions rather than offering snap judgments, we will find ourselves in that select company known as good listeners.

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.