Spiritual Formation: Effective Listening

Susan and Eric discuss the power of Effective Listening.  More information regarding effective listening and the "Hot Seat/Table of Decision" model can be found at:
The village website or the village conference

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:15

Welcome to Healing the City Podcast. My name is Eric, Susan[inaudible]. Hello. And we are in the midst of Covid doing podcast, COVID<laugh> Covid. And we thought we talk about lots of fun things. Um, today we're gonna talk about listening.

Speaker 2: 0:36

Effective listening.

Speaker 1: 0:37

Effective listening, and how to ask good questions. Mm-hmm.<affirmative>. So this is all part of a, um, model that we have developed. It has two names. People understand it as the hot seat model, which is its original name, and the table of decision, which describes the central part of the, or the center part of the model itself.

Speaker 2: 1:01

And I think it's actually important to talk about the two names, because I think the hot seat idea was, came from the idea that you're on the spot and people are asking you questions. But it, it has, that space has turned into such a space of encouragement. Um, that hot seat doesn't seem, uh, descriptive of it, really. I mean, it can be,

Speaker 1: 1:28

It, it's, it's a catching

Speaker 2: 1:29

Name too, but yeah. We just can't lose it. I mean, you can't call it the seat of encouragement. No. It just, it doesn't catch

Speaker 1: 1:36

No hot seat. Table of

Speaker 2: 1:37

Decision. Table of decision works because

Speaker 1: 1:39

The table of decision to be like, can you want table it? Yeah. And it doesn't mean put it under the table, actually puts it on top of the table.

Speaker 2: 1:45

Right. And it doesn't mean you're tabling it for later.

Speaker 1: 1:47

Yeah. Yeah. So it's kind of cool. Mm-hmm.<affirmative>. So I think it has two good names. It can be clear. They're good.

Speaker 2: 1:53

Yeah. But hot seat doesn't actually mean what you might think it means.

Speaker 1: 1:56

I think it, yeah. Though, I mean, when you get, when you're on the hot seat or tabling something, you that in your life, you might feel a little like focused, like kind of your seats getting a little hot,

Speaker 2: 2:08

Your sin can be exposed. Yeah.

Speaker 1: 2:10

Mm-hmm.<affirmative>. But we're gonna talk about in general, effective listening and effective questioning or question asking that leads to effective listening. Just, it doesn't have to work in the context of our model, but this is where we teach it and develop it. Um, it, it's just a good skill to have. Yeah. So, uh, I thought maybe we could just start talking about it and then you can, you have, like, when I start talking, you have all the ideas that fill things out, so we'll go from there. Um, so one of the things to begin thinking about effective listening is just to think about how poorly people listen. And so when people are talking about their life in general, if you ask a person how they're doing mm-hmm.<affirmative>, it seems to me, me and I do this a lot, and I'm trained pretty well and train people in this a lot, uh, when I hear someone telling a story about some event in their life mm-hmm.<affirmative>, I think of a similar event that I wish to tell after they're done telling, which means that I'm not really listening to what they're saying. My brain isn't focused. So, and one of the things that happens when my brain's not focused is I don't, uh, I may not catch the nuances of what they're saying, um, because I'm too focused on my story and how I'm gonna tell it. So that's one thing we do that that, um, is creates ineffective listening. How, I don't know. Yeah.

Speaker 2: 3:38

Well, and I think, you know, some of the foundation for why we value effective listening comes from encouragement, the key to caring by Larry Krab, um, where he talks about, uh, how we should, in Ephesians, let no un wholesome talk come out of your mouth, but let everything you say be for the building up of other people. Really rough translation. Right. Uh, but the idea that we're actually really called to ministry as we interact with other people, not just to being known and being known as good. And it, it should happen right. In relationship and in community, but our calling in Christ as priests is to minister. And so if we're going to minister, we need to really be able to listen to other people effectively and not only be thinking about our own agendas and what we want personally.

Speaker 1: 4:32

Right. Well, I think you could tag onto that, that, um, we're all image bearers of God, and, and God created us, um, very uniquely. And so part of listening well to someone is offering them dignity or giving them the honor of being someone created in the image of God. Yes. Um, which in a fallen world is why we have Ephesians, the, the passage and Ephesians mm-hmm.<affirmative>, because we're called to be rebuilding that and re-imaging the garden, so

Speaker 2: 5:04

To speak, and

Speaker 1: 5:05

Each other and each other Yeah.

Speaker 2: 5:06

Helping each other Yeah. Into being fully human Yeah. In God's image.

Speaker 1: 5:11

And listening is like one of the most powerful things you can do. Mm-hmm.<affirmative> in doing that.

Speaker 2: 5:16

And I think this also reminds me of the sermon series a while back on blessing. Yes. And the idea that blessing to bless someone is to see them, to know them, and to call them out. Right. And when we listen to each other, well, we are blessing the other person by really hearing what they're saying, seeing who they are, knowing them. And then we have an opportunity to call them out as we listen to the Holy Spirit simultaneously and hear what the spirit is saying to them.

Speaker 1: 5:43

Right. Yeah. And I think maybe a key thing in talking about listening well, is, is that you're not just like, if I am trying to plan out the thing that I'm gonna say that's similar to the thing you're saying, then in a way I've kind of tuned out what the spirit might be saying. Mm-hmm.<affirmative>. So part of listening is not just listening to the narrative, if the person's saying or the things that they're saying, but also trying to hear what the spirit might be saying. Mm-hmm.<affirmative> in the midst of that. Um, and so part of it is being quiet and listening mm-hmm.<affirmative>. Um, but

Speaker 2: 6:13

Which also then allows us to speak effectively, uh, because I think part of listening to each other is speaking, uh, you know, words strategic, well chosen words of affirmation, of encouragement. Yeah. Uh, of verbalizing the person's true identity mm-hmm. In Christ Yeah. And what God is inviting them to. Yeah.

Speaker 1: 6:41

I think we, we live in a, a very advice driven culture, though. Yeah.

Speaker 2: 6:46

Right. We have to

Speaker 1: 6:46

Be careful. Well, no, I mean, I think we're all inclined to give advice mm-hmm.<affirmative>. Right. I think that's, uh, it, it's funny, I mean, we, we, we seek advice in some ways, and we want to give it like, I think we mm-hmm.<affirmative>, it's, but it's not always that helpful.

Speaker 2: 7:04

Right.

Speaker 1: 7:05

Um, without listening mm-hmm.<affirmative>, what are, you know, I, I I think we could just go through some of the ways that people, I mean, people tend to wanna tell their stories, people tend to want to give advice. Mm-hmm.<affirmative>, what other things do, do people want to do? I mean, I think that the famous one, which is why, like the, being a two year old in your question, asking capacity, right.<laugh>.

Speaker 2: 7:31

Right.

Speaker 1: 7:32

How do you have, can you know? I don't know. Like, I think that plays out in a certain way too. When you ask somebody why you're about to say something.

Speaker 2: 7:40

Uh, I was going to say that I think sometimes we explain away the other person's, um, choices. Yeah. So sometimes if someone's talking or complaining about something, we want to commiserate with them and just say, oh, yeah, what you did was fine. And, uh, I would've done the same thing. Right. Anybody would do that. But effective listening, if we're listening to the person and the Holy Spirit, or the voice of scripture sometimes says that we need to hear what they're saying and not critique it in any way. Not give them a Yeah, that's okay, or no, that's not okay. Right. But to really listen to what's underneath it and, um, and hold judgment whether it's positive or

Speaker 1: 8:29

Negative. Yeah. Because if somebody says something like, well, I just, I just lost it on my kids and they were screaming and they're, they painted the whole wall and I just yelled the screen, I said these things. Yeah. I mean, people often wanna say, oh, well that's understandable. Right? Yeah. I would've done the same thing. You know, that seems okay. That you, you know,

Speaker 2: 8:49

But that's not really

Speaker 1: 8:50

Listening. No, it's not. It, it's, uh, in some ways, ways, it's, it's kind of fixing the anxiety that we're having while we listen to the person share something that was obviously traumatic to them and to their

Speaker 2: 9:02

Kids. Right.<laugh>,

Speaker 1: 9:04

So you wanna like, bring the, they bring it down real fast. Um, so yeah. Then there's the, so they asked, explaining things away, giving advice, telling your own story, and asking why, which the reality is, is most people wouldn't be asking you or telling you anything about their life if they knew why. Like, they wouldn't be talking about a particular problem and it their struggle with it if they knew why.

Speaker 2: 9:29

Well, and I think why is an interesting, it's kind of like one of the rules of the hot seat, not to ask why. Yeah. Uh, but it is a rule with exceptions. Sure. Right, of course. Because

Speaker 1: 9:41

Jesus asks why. So you gotta be

Speaker 2: 9:43

Able to do it. It sometimes it's a legitimate question when it's inquisitive and it's actually kind of hypothetical, like, huh, why do you think you did that? Right. You know, like, what's underneath that? But sometimes y can just be shaming D kind of depends on the tone of voice. Why did you do that? Right. Is a whole different question. Uh, if it's angry or,

Speaker 1: 10:06

Yeah. But I, I agree with you. Cut the conversation. I like the way you answered that question earlier. There were, were you, are, you worded the question were you had something, you were like, huh, I wonder why mm-hmm.<affirmative>, it wasn't sort of the person's, if they're like, well, I got in my car and I felt really frustrated and I punched it and I hurt my hand. Well, why'd you do that? Mm-hmm.<affirmative>, I don't know why I did that. Right. Like, I wanna have this conversation if I know why I did it. Right. Right. I'm giving you the events, not, but it's like, that's not the why is not necessarily available

Speaker 2: 10:44

To me. And basically why it's a question. It may not be the best question. Yeah. It's not. There might be other ways around to find out the why.

Speaker 1: 10:53

Right. But there are good things to be, to think why I shouldn't start with why. Mm-hmm.<affirmative>, you know, I shouldn't start with an explanation. I shouldn't start with advice. I shouldn't ask the questions that are just gonna get yes and no answers.

Speaker 2: 11:07

Right. Which again, is a hot seat guideline. It is. That is sometimes a rule meant to be broken. Yes. Because sometimes you just need a little bit more explanation of like, well, was it this? Yes or no? But yeah, usually a yes or no question just shuts down, shuts down the whole conversation because it's Nope. And then there's nothing that comes with it. So, uh, asking open-ended questions is usually more effective.

Speaker 1: 11:35

Right? I think so, because if you say, if you're talking to somebody and, and she says, well, I, I was, my husband was doing this, and I was angry at him, and I told him he was a blood. And you're like, well, do you like your husband? Yes. Okay.<laugh>,

Speaker 2: 11:51

Where do you go from

Speaker 1: 11:52

Here? Why did you say that to him? Mm-hmm.<affirmative>, if you like him, well then that's

Speaker 2: 11:57

<laugh>. Then you have a yes no and a

Speaker 1: 11:59

Why. A why. Right. See, so you no, put yourself in a bad situation. And then you don't really get to what's going on with that person at all. Um, so those are, those are bad questions. Those, that's where you should not start if you're going to be a good listener. Um, so we should talk about how one listens.

Speaker 2: 12:16

All

Speaker 1: 12:16

Right. Wow. Like, what are good questions? And, and I know you took notes, so you should, I, I also have notes here so we can just kind of

Speaker 2: 12:23

Get, I don't actually have notes to utilize. I just Gotcha. Uh, had a conversation with my pilgrim group a few months ago about effective listening, and people came up with really great ideas about why effective listening is helpful, how they feel when they've been listened to. Well,

Speaker 1: 12:41

You should read some of those. I it'd be great for our, our podcast.

Speaker 2: 12:44

Okay. So basically the, these are just some of the ideas that emerged. Yeah. Um,

Speaker 1: 12:51

You should talk

Speaker 2: 12:51

About'em. Were that effective listening, uh, helps us to hear the Holy Spirit. So sometimes, you know, I have something I'm going through or thinking about, but I am really don't know. I'm confused about it. I don't know what I'm supposed to do. Um, and somebody else listening to me can help me hear the Holy Spirit and understand what God is inviting me to. That's good. Um, effective listening helps us understand what's happening inside our minds. So sometimes it even helps us know what we're feeling, what we think about something, what lies we're we've been believing. Uh, just kind of lays things bare more, um, than we can do by ourselves.

Speaker 1: 13:35

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 13:38

Uh, it helps us recognize lies for what they are, because often the, the things that we believe that are actually not true sound really true to us. And that's how lies work.

Speaker 1: 13:48

Right. Right. Yeah. It, it helps expose

Speaker 2: 13:50

That. So if somebody else listens to what I'm believing and they say, well, I don't believe that, I don't think that's true, then it helps the lie lose power and become exposed for what it is. Um, and I think listening can also help us see what we need to do. Sometimes there, there's not always something different we need to be doing, but sometimes there's a clear course of action that needs to happen. Um, it helps us know how to pray ourselves, but also it helps other people know how to pray for us. Right. And, uh, it helps us to feel known and loved. And I think, like we mentioned before, blessed, it allows us to be blessed and bless each other. Yeah. So it creates connection in a community where we are known Yeah. And cared for by the people around us.

Speaker 1: 14:42

Yeah. When there's, when there's this intentionality, I think those, those different statements or some reason, uh, kind of bring to life what the effects of intentional listening. Like when, when we, there's a community of listeners. Yeah. What happens the way it creates health mm-hmm.<affirmative> within you. Um, I wonder like in, in our, you know, that we have a thing called the rules of thumb, or, or, and

Speaker 2: 15:10

We've, we tried to change them to guidelines.

Speaker 1: 15:11

Well, we called the hot seat rules because some of them to live by,

Speaker 2: 15:14

Some of them are rules to be broken occasionally. Yes. Yes. As we mentioned the before,

Speaker 1: 15:18

The ripples of our community wish to break the rules.<laugh> listening, I know how this works.

Speaker 2: 15:24

Why,

Speaker 1: 15:24

Why, why? So, so like you already said one, and that's just open-ended questions. Ones that allow the person to talk more. Um, but mm-hmm.<affirmative>, to get it down to a more practical thing, like number one would be reflective listening, being able to reflect back. Mm-hmm.<affirmative>. So words, you know, one of the popular thing we, we say at the village, and you'll hear anybody's been at the village for a while, uses this phrase all the time. It's like, it makes me just so happy cuz I'm like, I have helped create a culture of good question asking when people say, it sounds like when people say to me, mm-hmm.<affirmative>, Eric, it sounds like this is really hard for you. I'm like, yes, it's not hard for me anymore. Cuz you ask this great question,<laugh> mm-hmm.<affirmative>, I feel so happy. Um, so just being able to reflect back by saying it sounds like, it sounds like you're having a hard time. Sounds like you didn't know what was going on. Sounds like.

Speaker 2: 16:22

And what does it do for you when somebody asks you that?

Speaker 1: 16:25

Well, what it

Speaker 2: 16:26

Does, or it's not a question necessarily, but when

Speaker 1: 16:29

Somebody Well, well, it's

Speaker 2: 16:29

A good question, rephrases. Good

Speaker 1: 16:31

Question. What does that do for

Speaker 2: 16:32

You? Your,

Speaker 1: 16:34

It's good

Speaker 2: 16:34

Statement or what you're saying back to you.

Speaker 1: 16:37

It's, it, it helps me assess as to if I really believe that or not, is that something I'm actually experiencing? And if it isn't, then I don't have to have that category anymore. I can say, oh no, that's not it. And we can put that aside and they can say, oh, well, and then they can move to another kind of reflective thing to help me think about it. And we're categor we're removing things to like get down to how I really feel about a particular thing.

Speaker 2: 17:02

So in some ways, it sounds like is a hypothetical question Yes. Where the person is posing a hypothesis, uh, based on listening to you where they're saying, it sounds to me like you are thinking this, or it sounds to me like you're feeling this way and they resummarize what you say. And you have the freedom at that point to say, yes, that's it. That that's it. Yeah. You've heard me Or to say, well, no, that's not quite it. It's something else. And then you can add to it and shift it and the person can let go of the previous hypothesis and pick up at that point. Right. With listening again.

Speaker 1: 17:41

And one of the ones that I tend to use in counseling and less in the hot seat model actually is mm-hmm.<affirmative> is the, what I hear you saying. Mm-hmm.<affirmative>. And so what, what I hear you saying is that your wife blah, blah, blah. Or what I hear you saying is it's really this. And that person will be like, no, what I actually am saying, and then they can articulate it. Uh, because people, like, when you ask questions, people are more inclined to answer questions when they disagree with what you're saying. Mm-hmm.<affirmative> when you don't actually line up with them mm-hmm.<affirmative> because then they're like, no, and they want, there's something impulsive in them to correct you, and then all of a sudden what's revealed is how they really feel about things. Mm-hmm.<affirmative>. And so I love that just that question is, is pretty putting, putting some cognitive dissonance in the person's mind is very helpful.

Speaker 2: 18:30

So do you intentionally ask them something that's a little bit off of what you're hearing? Or are you actually saying,

Speaker 1: 18:38

I know I kind of go with the Holy Spirit because I feel like the, that I'm listening to them and what I want them, A lot of times what it helps them see is how I'm experiencing them mm-hmm.<affirmative> and how I'm experiencing their events. And it's just creating a place for them to begin to self-examine. So I don't intentionally say it as wrong. Mm-hmm.<affirmative>, it's just that I, uh, can't get in their brain. So,

Speaker 2: 19:06

So sometimes you're taking what they're saying and also what you know of them or mm-hmm.<affirmative>

Speaker 1: 19:11

What the spirit is saying,

Speaker 2: 19:13

The feeling you have in your gut. Yes. And kind of putting them together and saying, this is what I'm hearing. Yeah. And it might be a little bit different than what they actually

Speaker 1: 19:21

Said. Another one I tend to use is, is it seems to me, and I'll say, it seems to me that dah, dah, dah, dah. No. They'll be like, well, no, that's not how it was. And so it's,

Speaker 2: 19:36

And I think that's, that those statements are things that we also have to be careful with because we don't wanna stop at that statement. No. Right. If the person is, if we're listening to someone and we say, it seems to me we don't want that to be the end of the conversation. No. Right. We wanna be able, I mean, the, the, it might, it might be yes, yes, that's what's happening, but it could also be No. And we need to be able to be flexible to move past it into the next

Speaker 1: 20:02

Yeah. I mean, and you can say, it seems to me, so you're really enjoying this podcast. Is that true? And then that allows the person's feeling, well, you're like, well, no, I'm uncomfortable, but I haven't enjoying this part. And then it allows them to kind of

Speaker 2: 20:13

Go off. Right. It, it allows tore, it kind of creates another open-ended space. Right.

Speaker 1: 20:18

Well, the, yeah. The thing for me is people don't realize the impact they're having on other people. And so part of being a good listener is just saying, you impact me. Mm-hmm.<affirmative>, this is how I'm being impacted in this moment. Mm-hmm.<affirmative> is that, you know, you know, how do you feel about that? Mm-hmm.<affirmative> like

Speaker 2: 20:34

Yeah, that's a good point.

Speaker 1: 20:36

You know, that's a, that's kind of what you're saying in the, under the, underneath everything. Mm-hmm.<affirmative>, so the, that the other one. So you're, you know, so locating people's emotions question, I mean, because that's part of what we do in the hot seat, is getting people to be in touch with their emotions. So just asking the question, how, how did you feel when

Speaker 2: 20:57

Mm-hmm.<affirmative> and I think, I don't know if we're ready to launch into the hot seat No. At this point, but, uh, I think we talk about the hot seat. Like we teach this as a model Yes. For, um, I, I call it a form, a gospel focused format for effective listening. Mm-hmm.<affirmative> where we're trying to help, we're trying to listen towards the gospel. Right. And towards what would the gospel look like in your life in this situation. And I think that sometimes people get nervous about that because it's a, it's a model. It's not just one thing, it's several different pieces. Right. Sometimes they, they fit different together differently based on what the problem is. Um, and I think that sometimes we just get nervous about that and just set it to the side. Right. And ignore the hot seat. Cuz that just seems too complicated. Hmm. We're not sure if it's gonna go right. But I actually think that any question related to any part of the hot seat can be really effective, even if you just have one question. Right.

Speaker 1: 22:05

Right.

Speaker 2: 22:06

So, and, and emotion is kind of one of the early spaces in the hot seat. So yes, emotion would be good, but there's also lots of other possible good questions that might come out of the hot seat model without doing the whole process.

Speaker 1: 22:20

Right. And, and I think the, the thing that we're trying to, there's a model that we use and, and so this, we're gonna allude to the model a lot, but the reality is a lot of these pieces are just ways of relating to each other and that are healthy. Mm-hmm.<affirmative> and healthy ways of relating are asking good questions, identifying somebody's emotion if, like, how'd you feel when your husband yelled at you? Well, I felt really scared. You don't need to be like, well let's work out the your in our model, your false beliefs and where you felt your emotion into your body and all that kind. It's just like, what can I pray for you about that? Yeah. Like, can I just pray over your fear? You don't have to fix it, you don't have to go through some model that we've developed. It's just, you know, question asking and being able to listen is just 90% of being a good friend and a good follower of Jesus and pulling out the, the dignity of people.

Speaker 2: 23:12

Well and I think that example is really good because it, it brings to light, one of the reasons we wouldn't ask a good question is, you know, if somebody's telling you that their husband was yelling at them, you don't know what's gonna come out of that. You don't know what mess is underneath that with the husband that you're friends with, that you're in community with both of these people. You don't know what's happening and you're not sure if you want to know what's happening and you don't know if you're going to have the right answers once you find out more. Right. And so I feel like sometimes we just avoid listening or asking deeper questions because we feel helpless and we don't know what to do next. Right. But I think that's a really beautiful example of saying, of asking a deeper question. How did you feel? And, uh, and then praying for the person Right. Or whatever else needs to come after that. Yeah. Whatever other questions or sorts of things need to follow.

Speaker 1: 24:18

Yeah. And I think this, I mean, we can go round around, I mean, and talk about this forever because I think there's, there's so much cool things in it, but it is rooted some of the, you were talking about ministry mm-hmm.<affirmative> and, and our life of ministry and ideas that come from the encouragement of they keep caring book from Larry Krab. And there's a lot of things that converge into what we're talking about. But I think the reason that we would listen, well, partly, and, and why we would have the confidence to ask good questions is that we're rooted in our identity in Christ and mm-hmm.<affirmative>, you know, you and I were listening to somebody talk about, you know, a spiritual battle and she was talking about how she didn't wanna be clothed in her own flesh to go battle mm-hmm.<affirmative> because her own flesh and she's talking more about her race identity, but her own flesh then the, the armor of God and the spirit of God to go fight a spiritual battle. And I think what we have to understand is whatever's happening underneath things mm-hmm.<affirmative> people's motion, there's a spiritual war that's happening in that. And if you're clothed in the spirit of God and you ask a good question and things come to light, you have the power of prayer. Yeah. And the spirit of God to, to, to do an amazing and miraculous work. You don't need any special model or anything like that. Mm-hmm.<affirmative>. So that's why I think these questions are great. Like cuz they're aware the power is, and you see Jesus asking questions all the time.

Speaker 2: 25:41

Yeah. And going back to what we said earlier, you don't have to have the right advice. Right. Or the answer or the fix the solution to the problem.

Speaker 1: 25:51

Right. Or your story about how you fixed it in your life.

Speaker 2: 25:54

Right.<laugh>, you're really just invited to be present in the space and step before God in prayer together. Yeah.

Speaker 1: 26:05

So I think, you know, one good question then is how did you feel? When is there, like, do you guys use in your model, like, or not, when you guys are doing the hot seat, do you use other questions to locate emotions or is it usually just the, how do you feel when

Speaker 2: 26:22

It's usually pretty

Speaker 1: 26:24

Straightforward? It is pretty straightforward. I mean,

Speaker 2: 26:26

For any emotion, looking for emotion, I,

Speaker 1: 26:29

I think the two keys in that are just how do you feel when like, connecting it to an event mm-hmm.<affirmative> when when Yeah.

Speaker 2: 26:36

Sometimes people will answer that question with a thought. Yes. Um, I felt like, and then it won't be a feeling. Yeah. There'll be a thought. I felt like he was being a jerk. Right. Right. And so sometimes there's some pushback. There needs to be some pushback on it where it's either, huh. Well that's a thought, not a feeling. Well I wonder what you were feeling<laugh>.

Speaker 1: 27:02

Right. Well, you know, let's, let's talk about that. Cause that's probably where we can just sort of end this conversation. Is that, is the harder question is how did you feel when, because

Speaker 2: 27:15

I'm giving you a dubious look.

Speaker 1: 27:17

Well now because people don't know how they feel. Right?

Speaker 2: 27:23

Well, I I think it probably depends on who you're talking to.

Speaker 1: 27:27

Well, my experience is that people don't necessarily know how they feel. Mm-hmm.<affirmative>, do you think people know how they feel?

Speaker 2: 27:33

Well, I think Okay. What I'm, what I'm thinking of is when I taught, uh, the men in the leadership team, Uhhuh<affirmative>, our lead minister team, how I do the hot seat. Yeah. Eric and I switched places a few months ago and he taught the women leaders how he does hot seat. And I taught the men leaders how I do hot seat. And I was talking about how women are so aware of their emotions that sometimes we just get, it's easy to get stuck there because you can have 10 emotions come out of something, some event. And we could talk about that for way too long to get anywhere. Right. And they looked at me and they said, that isn't a problem we have in helping men get through the hot seat. Like they don't ah, they have a harder time actually coming up with an emotion.

Speaker 1: 28:26

Well what's interesting is I didn't have that problem with the women when I taught it and walked them through it. Cuz I don't let people have many emotions when I ask the

Speaker 2: 28:33

Question.<laugh> maybe<laugh>. Yeah. So I I that's why I'm giving you the eyebrows.

Speaker 1: 28:38

Well, so you're saying women tend to, they are feelers and they tend to have a lot of feelings about things,

Speaker 2: 28:43

I think. Yeah. I just think some people won't have any sense of what they felt at all. Right. Whether they're men, men or men or women. But, but, and other people will have so many Right. You know, intricate details to how they felt. Uh, yeah. Yeah. So yes, it could be a really difficult question to answer sometimes I also think a lot of, like, some feelings come up that aren't quite the right one. Mm-hmm. And we have to help each other discern what's underneath the feelings.

Speaker 1: 29:12

That's a kind

Speaker 2: 29:13

Of what I'm saying that's more accurate.

Speaker 1: 29:14

Okay. Is it's answered with requires more decoding than, for instance, if I say it sounds like blah, blah, blah, um, decoding someone's emotions when they're trying to express them and help them kind of get down to their core emotions.

Speaker 2: 29:33

Yes.

Speaker 1: 29:34

Yeah. Yeah. That yeah. And all, you're right. That's, that's, I actually think that's big for men and women. Yeah,

Speaker 2: 29:39

I agree.

Speaker 1: 29:40

Yeah. That they<laugh> well I would say at least my experience and I don't want to, you know, say, oh women are this way, men are that way. But my experience, I do it mostly with men, is that they're<laugh> usually they're, they're, um, first emotion is I was angry<laugh>. Mm-hmm.<affirmative>, like almost universally, whatever situation they're facing, I was angry mm-hmm.<affirmative>. And you're like, well, anger's a secondary emotion, so what's the emotion under that anger? What's going on there? Mm-hmm.<affirmative>. Yeah. So that's<laugh>.

Speaker 2: 30:12

Yes.

Speaker 1: 30:13

And so there's some decoding in that, but that tends to be more therapeutic. Just asking that question is a good

Speaker 2: 30:20

Question. It is<laugh> it is a good question.

Speaker 1: 30:23

But

Speaker 2: 30:23

Anyway, I think also some ways of feeling map out into a specific emotion that isn't really obvious at the beginning. Yeah. Like, you know, you, you write down five different emotions and you get to, you know, some of the other details of what was happening and you say, you know, I'm wondering if you were feeling shame, you know, as you look at the, just hear the pattern of emotion that's happening. Um, and that's one of those spaces where I feel like a yes or no question is helpful to, to say, you know, does that resonate with you? And sometimes people will be like, no, it wasn't shame. And other times someone would be like, oh yeah, definitely. Or helplessness. You know, there are some fe things we feel that, that are kind of compiled of other, of a whole set of experiences or, or feelings. Yeah.

Speaker 1: 31:19

So I think if we just reverse though a little bit back, I think asking good questions, um, I think everyone is an external processor. Hmm. And I think even though some of us are more internal, all of us are external in the way we come to things.

Speaker 2: 31:38

We need each other's minds mm-hmm.<affirmative> to help us be whole.

Speaker 1: 31:42

So we need to talk out loud.

Speaker 2: 31:44

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 31:45

And we don't have a lot of space to just talk out loud mm-hmm.<affirmative>, you know, and so that's the beauty of, you know, we talk in our community about holding people's stories and a lot of that's just letting a person talk out loud mm-hmm.<affirmative> because sometimes that's all they need to come to. Oh yeah. Wow. I had no idea that was going on until I started talking about it. Mm-hmm.<affirmative>, you know, and I think that's a just a powerful thing if you have a community that can hold the story and ask good questions

Speaker 2: 32:13

And pray. And sometimes I think holding someone's story well is, uh, is to not even ask a question Yeah. Is to hear the story and cry. Yeah. And then, and just have an, a true respo emotional response of your own to the story. Or to say, oh, I just feel so angry about that, you know, to have an emotional experience of their story without, you know, taking over the whole conversation with it. Yeah. No,

Speaker 1: 32:43

That's, that's

Speaker 2: 32:44

Powerful. But a a an honest response can be really significant. Yeah.

Speaker 1: 32:51

No, I think of the picture I tend to get when we talk about holding people's story. Cuz you know how many people, people don't use that or people don't know what that means to hold somebody's story. But there is this idea that all the words we speak have their own, like spiritual formation, you know, the proverbs talk about words having, you know, life and death built in them mm-hmm.<affirmative>, but they're also just, they go out, they do stuff when you speak them. And so holding someone story is to hold the words that they've spoken mm-hmm.<affirmative> collected together and give it all value and not allow it to escape into the ether without being recognized and blessed and cared for mm-hmm.<affirmative> and given back in some way to the person, you know, kind of in a way where it's cared for. And, and so I love that picture. I imagine that when people are, are saying

Speaker 2: 33:41

Yeah. And I think to tend to it without taking it and telling it to someone else. Yes. Um, I mean, it, it may come up if it's not a confidential conversation, there might be bits and pieces that come up somewhere else, but to not go gossip about it or Right. Say, you know, be sensationalize it in a, some other space, but to really hold it with honor and protect it.

Speaker 1: 34:03

Yeah. Well, and even when you tell it to somebody else, because I think one of the more powerful things is when you are mutually caring for people, you will be sharing their story with other people. Mm-hmm.<affirmative>. Um, but to, to actually honor it and give it dignity and not, like you said, make it sensational or tell more than needs to be told for Yeah. For someone to move towards a particular person or care for them mm-hmm.<affirmative>, um, or pray for them, you know, when you're in, certainly when you're inviting people to pray for others. Yeah. So, yeah. This is a fun conversation. You and I could talk forever about these things. We, we love these things. These are a part of us.

Speaker 2: 34:43

It's true.

Speaker 1: 34:45

So, uh, you have any last thoughts or are we good?

Speaker 2: 34:49

I think we said probably way too much.

Speaker 1: 34:51

Oh, we never say way too

Speaker 2: 34:52

Much<laugh>. I don't think we need to add

Speaker 1: 34:54

Anything. Awesome. Well honey, thank you so much for doing this. I'm so excited that we're gonna be doing these every week together for a while. Mm-hmm.

Speaker 2: 35:02

<affirmative>. Yeah, me too.

Speaker 1: 35:03

Awesome. All right.

Speaker 2: 35:06

All right. Thanks for listening everybody.

Speaker 3: 35:17

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