Transformational Listening Series: 4 Sessions Covering the Basics of JUST Listening

This JUST Listening series teaches skills for building relationships grounded in trust, empathy, and understanding. Over the course of 4 sessions, participants improve listening and communication skills by cultivating awareness of common communication challenges and ego-driven behaviors and practicing skills for listening with intention, to ourselves and others, and responding with humility and curiosity.

Our methodology is grounded in self-reflection and awareness based-systems change. We provide weekly self-reflection activities to encourage self-awareness of personal communication challenges and emphasize the importance of micro-practices-small, intentional actions that, when practiced consistently, lead to transformational change. 

Sessions provide an overview of relevant research on human behavior and neurobiology as well as opportunities to practice listening and communication skills in a caring environment. Participants leave with practical tools for building relationships, supporting decision-making, and responding peacefully in the context of conflict.

*This series is a required pre-requisite for all those wishing to participate in JUST Listening volunteer programs serving incarcerated individuals, seniors, and community members navigating homelessness and addiction. 

The workshop will be delivered in a series of four 1.5-hour online sessions taking place Wednesdays 10-11:30am EST. 

What We’ll Cover:

• Oct 7 – Session 1: Empathy, Othering, & Perception  
  • The physiology of empathy & othering
  • Understanding how our empathy is activated
  • The role of empathy and primal brain responses in our current context 
  • Tools & Micro-practices for reflection rather than reactivity

• Oct 14 – Session 2:  What Gets in the Way of Our Listening? : Listening Filters 
  • Overview of the Listening Filters that distort what we hear
  • Tools & Contemplative Micro-practices for Overcoming Listening Hurdles
  • Opportunities to practice cultivating awareness of filters

• Oct 21 – Session 3: Listening in the Context of Suffering
  • Exploration of the ways in which listening might unintentionally cause harm
  • The importance of self care and energentic practices for preparing ourselves to listen
  • Tools for listening to ourselves for guidance on when and how to listen with intention

• Oct 21 – Session 4: Responding Wholeheartedly to Others 
  • The importance of knowing what conversation we are in
  • Guidelines for shifting from argument to engaging in dialogue
  • Tools for supporting others in decision making without imposing our ego