TLDR: Active listening has become rare in the social media world. Being genuinely curious and asking the right questions can make you a better listener. How to know if you are becoming a better one? Kopi cups will be your guide!
It is not a pleasant experience; someone is deaf to what you are saying. Hearing the reply “my dad also passed away recently too” to your sharing of loss is cold comfort. As cold as a kopi you forgot about after making it. It ain’t pleasant.
We are sometimes guilty of being the inactive listener and other times, the receiving end of it.
How can looking at Kopi cups tell you if you are becoming a better listener? Before we get there, we have to understand what is active listening and how to get better at it.
Active Listening: What is It?
Active listening often refers to a way of listening that keeps you engaged in the conversation positively.
It requires listening attentively while someone speaks and reflecting on what is said, without jumping into advice and judgment.
Put simply, it has two main components:
Shutting up to listen and not give advice
Recognising you don’t know everything about the person
Naomi Henderson, the suffragist, summarises:
“The real secret to listening I’ve learned is that it’s not about me…I’m holding my cup out in front of me. I want to fill my cup and not pour anything in their cup”
Active Listening: What It is Not
It’s easy to get complacent about how well we know our friends. It is hard not to make assumptions about strangers based on stereotypes.
Assumptions quickly become our earplugs. It makes us inactive listeners as we listen through a stained filter.
Kate Murphy, the author of ‘You’re Not Listening’, argues that listening has become a scarce skill in the age of social media. Social media is not designed for how real communication works. We do not show friends a picture of our Laksa before asking them a question. The extreme focus of broadcasting ourselves has made us deaf to what others say and need.
So…am I an inactive listener?
If you answer “Yes” at least once, you might be having a cupful of inactive listening episodes.
ListeningAudit:
Recently, have you found yourself saying…
I feel you, I also….
Oh wait, we aren’t talking about X already? Whoops, sorry I am blur
I think that you should… (replying with solutions instead of empathy)
I hear you BUT…
Don’t you think that (inserts your assumption)
Now that you have done an honest audit, what are the benefits of listening?
Why Listen?
1. It makes you stand out positively
“If you want to really stand out in today’s world, stop talking about yourself and learn to hear what others are saying.” Kate Murphy.
It shows to people that you truly care, something rare today. A 2018 survey found that 46% of Americans said they did not have meaningful in-person social interactions.
How does being more outstanding look like?
“When I left the dining room after sitting next to Gladstone, I thought he was the cleverest man in England. But when I sat next to Disraeli, I left feeling that I was the cleverest woman.” Jennie Jerome (Winston Churchill’s mother)
Jennie spent an evening with two politicians. Disraeli stood out. Disraeli spent the evening asking questions and listening attentively to her responses.
He wanted to know everything about her and steered the conversation consciously towards her.
Naturally, Jennie felt good talking about herself. (Just like everyone else). Disraeli, who stood out amongst his peers through active listening, became the future PM of the UK while Gladstone handsomely lost the contest.
2. It helps you empathise better in a noisy world
With deep listening, we give our attention and energy to others. To listen is to let go of the self and be fully present for others, even when they are expressing strong feelings.
If we want to help a friend who is suffering, the best we can do is give them space. Space to share, cry and think.
When someone asked the Buddha for help or questions he did not say “That’s what happened to me before I became enlightened, it’s annoying yea?” He sat and heard what they needed to say and did not respond until they had finished.
Buddha was always uber busy attending to monks, nuns, kings, and merchants. However, if he could sit patiently and listen to questions, we have little excuse to not strive to achieve a small cupful of his empathy.
(Fun fact: Buddha was a busy person who slept at 2 am and woke up at 4 am to start teaching for 45 years)
In a world where there are noisy broadcasts of self-promotion, we can swim against the stream. We can empathise and listen.
2 Ways We Can Be Better At Listening.
1. Be curious about people
PM Disraeli had a strong curiosity about people. Before engaging in your next conversation, come up with a list of questions to train your curiosity muscles.
You can kopi-cat (copycat) Tim Feriss’ questions. A renowned writer, Tim asks his interviewees questions like: “In the last five years, what new belief, behaviour, or habit has most improved your life?”.
Notice how it focuses strongly on the individual and not on random news/topics?
If this is too much to try with strangers, try it with close relatives or friends. You may get to know them deeper than before. Keep your focus on asking people about themselves. You don’t have to say a lot.
You just need to be asking the right questions.
Armed with the questions, ensure that your questions are an invitation to a conversation and not a question checklist to be completed.
2. Ask the right questions
Having built curiosity about everyone you meet, how can we ask the right questions? Charles Deber says there are two responses we can offer in every conversation. Here are two examples of Shift vs Support responses.
While ‘shift’ responses make you feel that you are connecting with their situation, it doesn’t help the other person feel better.
In the case of your friend not feeling well, we’d respond with sympathy and ask a question. You might try asking what they are planning to do now.
The key to getting these right is to ask questions that get people to explain their situation in greater detail.
You might try a follow-up about a specific aspect that you don’t understand or want to know more about.
How Do We Know We Are Improving As Listeners?
The Kopi Test:
The next time you are eating with friends who eat at a normal pace, try this. If your cup is first to empty and you didn’t rush your meal, you are most probably listening. When you are busy drinking, you have more time to listen.
If your kopi cup is full while everyone’s cup is empty, try harder next time to listen more.
Compliments:
The second way is straightforward. When someone tells you are a great listener. That’s better than looking at kopi cups. The feeling of connection after a good conversation and the genuine smiles exchanged is a great testament to your listening skills.
May the next time your eyes catch a kopi cup remind you to listen more and talk less. *sips*
Wise Steps:
Look at kopi cups to see if you finished slower than your friends, it may mean you need to improve on your listening
Be genuinely curious about people, ask them for more details of their lives
Focus on ‘support’ responses and reduce ‘shift’ responses, it is a gamechanger
TLDR: Many of us resort to habits when we are unconscious of what arises in our minds. Being aware of the moment as it happens does help in navigating daily ups and downs.
Meditation is the household term nowadays, with various methods, teachers and even mobile apps to help anyone take on the journey within. The practice is not reserved just for the select groups as many people are welcoming to the idea.
It is the age-old method sworn off by many to help in mindfulness, mental health and spiritual journey, among many benefits. I’m not writing for or against these views, but rather to share how I have experienced it so far.
It does not have to be perfect
I, like many others, have been introduced to meditation for years now and have taken the time to sit quietly on the blocks ( the typical cushion height does not support the posture as well for me 😊) every morning and night – sometimes to contemplate, other times to just stay in silence.
Just as there are days of stillness, there are also days of a rambling distracted mind – which I have come to accept.
While I can’t say for sure whether it has been successful (how do we measure success in meditation, anyway?), the regular practices do help me to be less reactive in daily life.
Take the recent occurrence at work. A team member retorted to a question I asked out of curiosity via company internal chat, commenting that I should probably tell her exactly how she should handle the situation if I was unhappy with her way.
My first reaction was feeling surprised, then a thought “she does not have to react that way”.
A reactive me would probably take on a stance to protect the ego-personality and try to ‘put her in her place’ for being rude (notice the judgment here?).
When emotions arise, breathe
Instead, I took a couple of breaths and decided to leave the chat to attend another meeting.
I called her thirty minutes later and asked “What has happened to cause you to respond that way?”. Probably still holding on to her earlier emotions, she responded with increased intonation in her voice and started to comment on how I was, to borrow her words, being a ‘micro-manager’ and she does not agree with my view of letting the team figure things out for themselves instead of giving guidance right away.
She has called this ‘leaving them in a lurch’. A training method I had applied when training her and she felt it was wrong, considering she had felt lost and had difficulties previously.
The split-second gap in mind
During the few minutes of listening to her, I can feel the heat rising within my body and the internal push of wanting to stop her. Then another thought came into my mind “She is probably under pressure and has internalised her own experience rather than her colleagues’ actual experience”.
Once she was done, I started apologising for not realising she had felt lost before and was unable to help her alleviate the negative experience. She probably did not see it coming, considering it might not be the typical response others would give.
We concluded the conversation with acknowledgement of both of our experiences in the current conversation and agreed on the next steps that both of us are comfortable with.
This incident has highlighted to me the importance and usefulness of awareness and mindfulness I cultivated on the cushion as I go about the day – when the habit of protecting myself and shifting the blame to anything and anyone but me arises.
Keeping friendliness (Metta) in my response and intonation probably helped in preventing the situation from escalating further. After all, I can only control how I respond to the external world by taking self-responsibility for this inner journey.
Wise steps:
Meditation does not have to happen only one way, at a specific time and in a dedicated space
Rather than going on auto-pilot into our (unwholesome) habits, stop to consider what might have caused the negative response
Try to consciously maintain Metta in the mind, it might help to keep heated situations neutral
TLDR: Is Metta Meditation really beneficial? Jin Young shares his own personal practice and his relationship with loving kindness meditation. A 30-min guided meditation is included. You’re invited to test it out for yourself.
When you don’t know what to do, try out metta or loving kindness meditation.
Encountering Metta MeditationMy first encounter with metta was listening to Imee Ooi’s “Chant of Metta ”. Imee’s voice was angel-like, saccharine and soothing. I especially enjoyed her chanting of the Metta Sutta in Pali language, albeit not knowing much about the actual meaning behind those words back then.
My mom would sometimes play the CD around bedtime, and I guess it must have had some sort of sleep-inducing effect, much like lullabies for babies.
Lighting My Fire Of Metta
When I was fifteen, I sat through my first metta meditation under the guidance of Ajahn Brahm. Ajahn explained that the cultivation of metta is analogous to starting a fire. You can’t start a fire by lighting up a huge log.
Rather, you need kindling, easily combustible materials for starting a fire such as papers or small little twigs. Once the fire is started, one then adds on larger and larger twigs before moving on to solid pieces of wood.
When the fire is well maintained, you can further grow it until the passion of loving kindness is strong enough to embrace the whole universe and even your worst enemies.
But first, we need to start with kindling. Ajahn told us to visualize someone whom we can readily feel and send loving kindness to. For me, it was my late grandmother who had taken care of me when I was young. She showered me with unconditional love.
“Dear Ahma”
“The door of my heart is open to you”
“I will take care of you”
“May you be safe, well and happy”.
With these words, I felt my chest and heart glowing with love and warmth. We then proceed to send similar thoughts and wishes to our other family members, friends, acquaintances, animals, and all sentient beings.
It was an empowering experience to meditate on metta with Ajahn Brahm. The flame of “metta” was passed on from Ajahn to us, and from us to our loved ones and on and on.
Keeping the Metta Flame Glowing
Since then, I’ve tried my best to keep this flame alive wherever I go. In Selangor, I joined the Buddhist Gem Fellowship and attended a weekly guided metta meditation by Datuk Seri Dr. Victor Wee, another lay-teacher and compassionate mentor.
Dr. Wee’s cues were slightly different from Ajahn Brahm’s, but the spirit of loving kindness was the same.
I brought the practice of metta meditation with me to Japan and China, where I studied abroad for four years. Whenever I missed my family, encountered negative events, or felt like I was stuck in an uncertain and helpless situation, I turned to metta meditation for help.
I like to believe that by sending my thoughts of loving-kindness to my family and friends, they are protected by my wishes, and become well and happy.
By sending metta to a professor or a superior, he or she would give me an A+ or a pay raise (I’m only half-kidding). By sending it to someone with whom I’ve had a negative encounter, relationships will slowly turn for the better, enmity and ill will shall be transformed into love and light.
No, Metta doesn’t Solve Everything
Of course, there’s no guarantee that metta will always convert “negativity” into “positivity”, nor is it a panacea for everything in life.
However, I believe that it can help transform the state of one’s mind – To face life’s suffering and problems with a heart of loving-kindness and gentleness.
Over time, as I became a yoga teacher and started leading mindfulness retreat expeditions to the Himalayas, I’ve developed and come up with my practice and cues for leading metta meditation.
These cues are of course consolidated from the various teachers mentioned above. During this pandemic lockdown, I decided to record a 30-min long guided metta meditation. I share it with anyone keen to explore and integrate this practice into their lives.
“Watch your thoughts, they become your words; watch your words, they become your actions; watch your actions, they become your habits; watch your habits, they become your character; watch your character, it becomes your destiny.” This quote is often attributed to Laotzu.
Can we make metta “loving-kindness” the character and destiny of our life?
Wise Steps:
If you find it hard to send loving thoughts in your mind, find a safe space and utter them out in words.
Make it a habit to randomly wish someone to be well and happy each day, whether it’s mentally towards someone you love or to random strangers on the streets.
Meditate at least once a week to reset yourself energetically and spiritually.
TLDR: Why quit your job during a pandemic? How do we help our friends who are thinking about quitting?
When the pandemic plunged the world into recession, university graduates felt nervous. The fear of not finding a job or having your job offer rescinded was real.
Hence, to land a job and then quit your stable, full-time job during a pandemic makes you pause and say “Huh, why?”. Yanda has a different take. He asks ‘Why not?’.
Sipping coffee as Yanda shares his story
The Job Hunt Hype
Yanda, a final year student in 2020, took his time to enjoy university while it lasted. He mentioned that “everyone was rushing to secure a job. There was great hype for job hunting.”
It was definitely not an easy climate to be in. Rather than worrying about uncertainty, Yanda volunteered for Buddhist Organisations such as NTU Buddhist Society/ BYN (Buddhist Youth Network). He then took on the job search in his own time.
(No. Yanda doesn’t come from an uber-rich family where a job falls on his lap. He didn’t see the need for an all-or-nothing chase.)
Eventually, Yanda obtained a few offers in the engineering space and took on a role he thought he might enjoy. That is where things changed.
Is This It?
Work soon became monotonous and a routine for him. He noticed a routine of “working, going out for lunch, sitting back down and going home.”
This made him wonder, “Is this it? Is this how I am going to spend my life? What do I want? If I lived to 60 years, will I be content with doing 40 years of the same thing?”
In response to his musing, I mumbled: “Definitely not me.”
His attempt at sharing work struggles with some friends did not yield something he could relate to. They alluded to “finding meaning in your job rather than have the meaning come to you.” It was cold comfort.
I could see his thought process unfold and why that advice didn’t sit well. Yes, there was this sense of job security during a pandemic but it brought little meaning to him. That meaning was nearly impossible to find.
The turning point came when this question popped to mind, “If tomorrow, I am going to die, I would only remember that I did paperwork here and there. That’s it”. That spurred him into action. He tendered his resignation and left the company to the shock of his peers. New hires are usually expected to stay in that job for at least 2 years, but he stayed in that role for less than 6 months.
The Pains Of Change
“I had fear and felt scared”, he gulped when recalling the moment he quit and had no job offer on the horizon.
“So what helped you through the uncertainty?” I quizzed.
The fellowship of his Buddhist circle who listened patiently was what brought him to a brighter state of mind. Friends that were slow to advise but quick to listen to his pain helped him greatly. “That is what matters…being there for me,” he concluded.
“Confidence in the Buddha’s teaching, knowing that all these negative emotions would fade,” he added, gave him strength when he was alone. He viewed the transition as “uncertainty at its very core.”
Over the years, having done mindfulness practice enabled him to watch his emotions and to make necessary changes without attachment. That gave him the conviction that it was not an impulsive move but an informed one.
Starting Again
Smiling as he recalled his Buddhist work, “I have done a lot of Buddhist work that brought joy to me. If this (engineering) job doesn’t fit me, what can I do?”
As causes and conditions came together, Yanda didn’t need to wait long for an answer.
“A friend told me that she had an opening at a preschool where they wanted a Dhamma friend to help build the school’s curriculum.” He recalled. He mulled on the idea of facing kids all day and decided to take the plunge.
Yanda is now studying for a Diploma in Early Childhood Education while working to help build the preschool’s curriculum.
“Uncertainty,” he answers immediately when asked what he loves about his job. “What the children can bring to you every day with every interaction presents uncertainty,” he added.
When he dived deeper, he felt lifted about being able to help kids appreciate this ‘thing’ called the mind. Letting them know that there are ways to develop their minds. Equipping them with Buddhist concepts, techniques and emotional awareness to thrive in a stressful world really motivated him.
“Kids are easy to teach, as they are free of concepts,” he quipped. At that moment, I recalled being an inquisitive child, something I felt I have lost along the way. It was interesting to see how uncertainty could bring us pain (job transition) and joy (teaching kids).
Helping Others Start Again
I was curious to hear Yanda’s take on how we can help our friends’ transition from one job to another.
“There is no one-size-fits-all solution, but what I can say is that this is something cliché,” Yanda shared.
“Listen to them and be genuinely happy for them. Recognise that they took a courageous decision to step out of something that did not fit them,” he added.
On a practical side, Yanda shared that we should remind our friends to also financially plan ahead if they choose to resign without a job offer. As a rule of thumb, one should have at least 3-6 months of expenses saved in cash to weather them through their job search.
His advice was grounded heavily on the Buddhist idea of appreciative joy which is a joy in the achievements/victories of others.
“How can I support you? Do you need resources/contacts?” has been one of the most helpful questions friends asked. I instantly agreed by nodding furiously as I felt that we often are quick to develop solutions without considering our friends’ needs.
Turning Back Time
“Your first job is super important” is one piece of advice that Yanda recommends ignoring for graduating students. It adds unnecessary stress to the individual. That person may then seek out the perfect job which may not exist.
Having wisdom is crucial in helping us see the world properly. If he could turn back time to advise his graduating self, he would say this: “Have an attitude in life that let the results take care of themselves once I try my best. If it doesn’t go my way, what can I do next?” and “We are our own boss, only we can understand our emotions and the true nature of our mind.”
Asking that question gives us the courage to be open to what life can bring. What we can do is to create conditions for success while developing a sense of non-attachment to the outcome.
“Understand we have a mind, and emotions are never truly ours. Just like a cup. The reason why we wash it is that we are confident that the dirt can be washed off. The dirt was never the cup.” he summarised.
It was a mind-blowing summary of expectations and emotions. Recognising emotions as transitory and being at ease with the unpleasant is a skill set we all need as we go through the different changing phases of life.
Yanda showed that Singapore youths are hungry for life and meaning. We need not stay in the same job just to clock a magical number of years before leaving. Asking ourselves “Is this it?” can spark conversations and paths we never dreamt of.
Yanda is currently working in Blue Lion Preschool as an early childhood educator trainee.
TLDR: When we are at the height of our career success and plummet into failure overnight, what do we do? Gather our courage to see things from a different perspective.
The Highs Could Only Go Higher Right?
2019 was an amazing year for my career. I achieved the coveted promotion by securing large revenues for my company, the bosses had only praise for my hard work, and I earned nearly 1-year worth of bonus.
Times were good, and when January of 2020 approached, I had only big plans for the year. This was going to be the zenith, I knew that I would achieve my second promotion, earn even more money and shine ever bigger.
In a natural turn of events, I knew nothing.
The moment COVID began impacting Malaysia, my career nosedived in a single day. All the deals I had lined up were halted, and the tumultuous journey began.
Long were the days of tough talk with the bosses; it felt almost like a consistent interrogation revolving around my presence in the company despite my lack of revenue. It was apparent how the company now saw me as a burden.
The Crash Of Change
I was entangled in a mass and mess of emotions; my mind alike to the sea that I so love, unpredictable. Fury, jealousy, melancholy, had a wonderful time consuming my waking thoughts.
Thoughts of “Why can’t they understand my difficult situation?” and “Why are they making things difficult for me?” only oiled further anger within.
To soothe this heat, I began plotting to create reputation damage to the company. Sharing this with a good friend, he merely asked “What is the point of harming others and oneself?”
Building Courage Again
That phrase gave my mind a sudden epiphany. For years I have heard the phrase ‘embrace change’, but now I am behaving like a temperamental child robbed of desires.
It is odd how I welcome change with a big hug only if it is in my favour yet loathe the tide’s natural turn when my desires are unmet. What I needed, was quite simply courage.
Courage to admit that success and failure are betrothed, there is nothing shameful about failing. Courage to refrain from blaming an external party for the source of my negative emotions, and instead to realise that I am still a lot of work in progress. Courage to embrace change, both positive and negative with grace.
I found the Dhamma quote on being unshakeable when the winds of life blow inspiring:
