A friend who recently took a rafting trip to the Grand Canyon said that she will never forget how the guides stopped, sometimes for twenty minutes or more - and just listened to the river. What exactly were they listening for?

She said the guides told her that when the river appears gentle and calm, they know not to be fooled. They use all their sensory antennae to hear what they may encounter downstream. Realizing that if unskilled paddlers did not hear the rumble a short distance away, they would be dangerously unprepared if they tumbled into raging rapids.

My friend Kit, who has been canoeing rivers for many decades, responded thoughtfully when I asked her to tell me about her experience of listening when she is on the river. She said, “When I’m on the river, my ears open wide. I can hear how big the space is. I can hear little gurgles. I can hear what an eddy sounds like and how a rock is like a hole in the sound. It’s interesting, because I don’t consider myself to be a particularly good listener in other areas of my life.”

According to the Oxford dictionary, eddies are described as “a circular movement of water counter to the main current, causing a small whirlpool.” And according to my river guide friend, there is no end to the way eddies can trap or suck you in. “They run the gamut,” she explained, “from being calm pools to pulsating cauldrons of intense swirling water.”

Thinking of eddies started me wondering, “what if we could also develop our third ear to listen for eddies that may be swirling and gurgling under the surface as we communicate with each other – and within ourselves?” And by noticing the eddies, could we avoid getting sucked in and trapped? What I am calling an eddy in this context, is a habitual loop with a storyline, belief or behavior that has become so embedded, it leaves little room for any other perspective. When stuck in an eddy, thoughtful and curious listening would become challenging – at best

Learning to recognize eddies in our conversational spaces requires intention, presence and practice. We must learn to let go of assuming that we know what the other person will say. We need to let go of preparing our counterarguments while they are still talking. And what’s really, really hard is that we need to let go of our judgments and biases. This chapter will explore how we can dive under the surface with our listening, in order to listen with heart and more curiosity.

The legendary philosopher Lau Tzu, who is believed to have lived in the 6th century BC, said, “Water will wear away rock, which is rigid and cannot yield. As a rule, whatever is fluid and soft will overcome whatever is rigid and hard. What is soft, is hard.” 

In fact, the whole Taoist philosophy stems from looking at the cessation of striving and the balancing of action with non-action. This is exemplified in the Taoist concept of “Wu wei” translated as “effortless action” and is observed in the quality of flow seen in certain martial arts like Tai Chi or Qi Gong. All of this happens to be radically antithetical to our Western approach of striving and control. What if we can learn to live and work differently? To live in accordance with nature instead of always trying to control it, to learn to work with people instead of trying to overpower them?

Since water is in a continual state of flux, changing and adapting, lessons from water can be instructive for our times. Today there are no clear-cut moves or maps to follow. Instead, what may be most needed is for each of us to learn how to navigate our nervous system. What if we could learn to become calm, centered, and fluid—even in the midst of the volatility, complexity, and ambiguity swirling around us?

A river undammed flows easily and quickly becomes restorative again. The same is true for humans around our communication patterns. Dammed up communication and held-in feelings create stagnation, and over time it hampers our ability to have healthy relationships or even experience a healthy sense of wellbeing. When we learn to harness our emotions, they become more fluid, vibrant and more life force is available. I am not talking about denial or controlling, eradicating, or even chasing down emotions. Instead, it is about feeling our emotions, observing them transform, and then just letting them go. We have both the capacity to feel and the capacity to let go. We need both. 

Are You a Soldier or a Scout?

In Warren Berger’s The Book of Beautiful Questions, he shares a metaphor offered by Julia Galef, cofounder of the Center for Applied Rationality. She asks: “Am I a soldier or a scout?” She explains that the mindset of a soldier is to protect and defend against the enemy whereas the job of the scout is to seek out and understand. Scouts are always on the lookout for openings. They become curious and ask good questions so they can help uncover new information and help the speaker explore their problems in new ways. Then they listen carefully. Sometimes, surprising openings appear.

In the spirit of creating flow we need each other to act as sounding boards and to help unpack our own thoughts. Being a scout is not just for professional coaches or mediators. We can help each other to think more clearly and creatively.

This ebb and flow from speaker to listener is powerful because it helps the speaker gain even more refinement about their message by hearing it played back. The linguist Gregory Bateson said, “It takes two to understand one.” Just like there is a building of strength when two rivers meet and join to become one stream, there is a deepening of understanding when we come together as listener and speaker. We need each other to excavate the truth that may be lying just underneath and between our words.