Listening as a Creative Act

Becoming a better listener opens up avenues of creativity. Our minds gravitate towards the feeling of familiarity- the preference towards knowing and being right versus being wrong, uncertain, and not knowing. Are you familiar with knowing what the person is going to say before they say it? 

How uncreative it is to pretend to know. What might happen if you suspend that impulse to know or set aside that voice of assumption that interrupts both the talker and even you as the listener? Not only are you interrupting the other person, you are interrupting your own creative process. What thoughts, images, feelings might arise in that uninterrupted space. This podcast goes deeper into this topic. Maybe you can play with the technique in your next meeting, performance review, conversation with your significant other, mother or child. 

Negative Capability - an interview with Dr. Catherine Mallouh