A LISTENING EXERCISE FOR GROUPS

- a group dynamics exercise

PURPOSE: This exercise can teach people how to listern far better than they
normally do. It teaches how to set aside your personal agenda to fully hear
another without judgement or the need to give advice. You can learn to fully take
in all another says as well as what they do not say with words, but with only
emotions or implied connotations. In-depth listening can be the one of the
greatest gifts you can give another person.
It can be done any size group and has great dynamics for ages down to about 14
years old. It can be used in schools to teach listening in the speech classes. The
procedure given below is the way it is done in a community building workshop,
but it can be adapted for your use with a little creativity.
PROCEDURE:
1. Get the group in pairs. Have them sit facing each other, but do not touch each
other. The facilitator says to the pair, "Decide who is A and who is B. Then, A is to
talk about something important to person B for 3 minutes. Person B is to listen as
closely as possible. Then I will signal for B to start talking to person A and A will
only listen. Do not respond to the speaker or touch them.
2. Following this, discuss how it was to listen and how hard or easy it was to
suppress you own thoughts or need to respond verbally.
3. Then do it again. Add to the instructions: "Now try harder to listen with your
whole body and make the listening deeper. Start now and continue speaking
about something important for 4 minutes each.
4. Then again have individuals talk about how it was to listen and emphasis how
it may have been hard to restrain giving any verbal comments.
5. Following this, Add to the instructions: "This time listen so intently that the
speaker feels they are being physically held because your listening is so intense.
Let them know that you are fully taking in all their emotions as well as the words
and what is not being spoken. Do this for 5 minutes and continue to speak about
something important."
By this time, some pairs may really be into emotional speaking, even tears. Be
mindful of this when calling time. Many times you will have one or more pairs that
need to continue to processing. If this happens, quietly have the remaining pairs
quietly gather around them to allow the processing to continue until finished.
6. Then discuss what they have learned and what they will take home with them.

LISTENING EXERCISE WARMUP

(Used this to warm up the group before doing the exercise)
NOTE: For more information about the process of emptiness,
see The Different Drum, by Dr. M. Scott Peck.
PROCEDURE: In the group, have volunteres read each of the following
paragraphs. Following the reading of all paragraphs, discuss the meaning in the
group. Have them tell what emptiness might mean to them.
Emptiness is a word relating to open space - "nothing in a space". It is also a
metaphor suggesting making room or space for others or the spirit by removing
your personal ego from that space. If you are very "full" of yourself with whatever
makes up your self-identification, then it is often difficult to be accepting and
understanding of others' vulnerability. It is also difficult to accept the reaching out
of another person. The process of emptying oneself, is making space for others
by transcending your ego to accept others just as they are. By letting others into
our lives, we find out important things about ourselves and we let community
begin to happen.
Emptiness also has to do with making space within yourself for something new.
People are often so full that there is no room for the new. By searching inward
and looking at what occupies our thinking or self-talk or our "wants", we find what
needs to let go of. This can take a number of different forms. Sometimes we
choose to share a painful event with the group and in so doing let go of some or
all the pain. The painful event will then not occupy so much mental space and we
are often open to letting something new into our lives. At other times it may be
the letting go of a material "want". And at other times it may be realizing that our
'self-talk' is negative and we choose to replace it with positive thoughts.
Whatever form it takes, it allows the new to become a part of our lives and to
perhaps realize we are far more happy than we give ourselves credit for daily
and it allows us to see beauty all around us.

From Dr. Scott Peck . . . . .

"Emptiness is the most crucial stage of community development. It is the bridge
between chaos and community. The stage of emptiness in community
development is a time of sacrifice. Such sacrifice hurts because it is a kind of
death, the kind of death that is necessary for rebirth."

Now read the following:

A number of skills go into allowing emptiness:

It takes courage to look deep within yourself, to discover with increasing

awareness of what is not working.
It requires the ability to risk to "let go" of what is no longer needed.
It involves acceptance and validation of the person.
It uses silence as a most essential ingredient of the emptiness process.
Silence allows us to hear ourselves and to hear others and to even hear
the Spirit. To be still and accept silence is often a difficult skill to learn.
To facilitate emptiness in another, it requires listening with your whole
person to another, even to the point that the other person feels physically
and emotionally "held" and accepted by you.
Stop here to discuss the above. Then go on to read the following:
Let's look at emptiness more from a personal viewpoint of what may need
to be emptied:

To empty ourselves of our agendas in order to be able

to hear those of others.
To empty ourselves of our prejudices, biases,
stereotypes, projections, etc. in order to see and hear
what is real.
To empty ourselves of our expectations and required
outcomes.
To empty ourselves of the need to organize or control
the group or our environment or an outcome.
To empty ourselves of the need to be "Captain of our
Fate"; to surrender our lives to a "Higher Power" as
we understand the spirit.
To empty ourselves of the defensive barriers we
create that prevent the intimacy we all want.

Discuss the above.

From Dr. M. Scott Peck, The Different Drum . . . . .

"Emptiness can also be a need for intimate contact and sharing our lives with
other people. We may feel "empty" because of the longing for closeness to
another person. This need may be to have another listen and hear our feeling
and who we are. It may be to have your person validated as being fully human in
your vulnerability and be accepted for who you are and just as you are without
judgment or attempts to fix, heal, or convert. At the same time, intimacy with
another helps us see who we are and how we want to live among others."

Exercise copyrighted by Jerry L. Hampton, 1994 - 2003

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