“To see us, hear us and know our story of living through this time.”
In a workshop with Willem Kuyken, Oxford Professor of Mindfulness and Psychotherapy, in April last year he mentioned some research that had been done with key workers in Wuhan, China. After the first lockdown, they were asked “what do you most need on returning to your place of work?” Their response? “To see us, hear us and know our story of living through this time”.
As 8th March draws closer and we prepare to welcome more children and staff back to school in England, what does this mean for us now? We have lived through a year of regional tiers of restrictions, three national lockdowns, remote educating our own children alongside those of our school community, all whilst planning, re-planning and preparing for what the rest of this year will bring.
In short, the world our staff and children are returning to has changed, so have they and so have we. So how do we see, hear and know our collective stories of this year? How do we come to understand the ‘spectrum of fragility’ that we and our school community will be carrying? How do we become aware of the resilience, the growth and the learning that the pandemic has granted us and build from it?
How do we stay present in a conversation, in order to truly see and fully know those we lead?
I know in my leadership I have tried to do this but too often failed. I now find myself reflecting;
How often have I steered a conversation that required deep listening towards resolution and action too quickly?
How often have I jumped in to give advice when it wasn't asked for?
How often have I appeared to be listening, whilst distracted by my own thoughts and not truly present?
How often have I ended a conversation before the other was ready because of what it triggered in me? Perhaps hearing the distress of a member of staff as a judgment on my leadership or feeling uncomfortable that I couldn't do anything to help?
We need a different way to be in the conversation, by practicing the art of ‘simply witnessing’. As Jon Kabat Zinn said in his book Full Catastrophe Living, “simply bearing witness changes everything’. But what exactly is it?
It’s not just listening in order to respond, even if wisely. It’s not verbal bantering. It’s not a back and forth conversation. It is so much more than that. The art of ‘simply witnessing’ is to refrain from communicating with words at all, at least for a moment. It is the act of making space and taking the time to truly witness another person.
Here’s how…
Be here
Open up your senses, playing close attention to what you are seeing, feeling and thinking, to your emotions and mood. Then turn that towards the other person. How is their body language? Their tone? What can you learn from their speed of speech, their facial expressions, their posture, their breathing?
Refrain
Notice your impulse to rush, to fix, to take action, – and refrain. Instead stay with enquiry – “tell me more”, “how does this make you feel?”, “what else would you like to say? Refrain from disempowering their experience by sharing a similar one of your own – this only serves to minimise their experience in their eyes.
Open perspective
When you feel a rush to judge, or to immediately analyse whats going on, intentionally practice opening up your perspective asking– “is there any other way I could be perceiving and relating to this?”
Watch thoughts
Notice when you get distracted by your own mental narrative “you think you’ve got problems…” or “me too – let me tell you about a time when…”
Notice triggers
Be aware of the emotions and feelings it is triggering in you – particularly “have I caused this?” or “why didn't I notice this earlier?” As best you can, release these.
Create space
Allow silences in the conversation. A space in a conversation is not a void – its essential. Notice the impulse to fill the space and wait. Slowing down the conversation, even a little, allows for more ‘noticing’ and builds trust.
But if this is it – if this is the art of witnessing –as leaders we may feel we weren’t able to ‘offer anything’ or that we added little value, particularly if there is no sense of an action or a solution. Other’s expectations of us can mean the conversation can feel ‘unsatisfactory’ from our perspective. In fact, the opposite is true. Something has been achieved simply as a result of having had the conversation.
I find asking the following questions can help with that ‘sense of a conclusion’
‘What is it you most need right now and how can you give this to yourself?’
‘Is there anything I can say or do that would be most helpful to you right now?’
in my experience the response is often; ‘you’ve listened and that’s enough’.
So, as we prepare to welcome our school community back into the school building, the same people but different, perhaps we might remember Alice who, in conversation with the Mock Turtle in Alice in Wonderland said:
I can’t go back to yesterday, I was a different person then.
With thanks to the education leaders who have shared their experience of ‘simply witnessing’ and increased my understanding of it.
Maggie x