Looking after ourselves as listeners so that we can sustain our capacity to listen for the long haul.

Listening is one of the core skills of supporting one another, building our communities, changing our behaviours and resolving our conflicts. It can also significantly contribute to our overwhelm and burnout. Given how important it is, we need to find ways of listening well, that are sustainable for the long haul.

In this blog I am going to share what I have learned from decades of training and supervising crisis service teams to listen. I have also taught multi disciplinary teams of social workers, GP's and voluntary sector staff to listen inside of time and resource pressured situations, and I have a private practice listening to people in a wide range of contexts.

Active listening ~ the basic skills.

If you have done any training in listening you are very likely to have covered active listening skills. You will have learned how to summarise, paraphrase and use non verbal cues to demonstrate that you were paying attention.

These skills are foundational and essential, but they do not protect the listener from the very real risk of burnout. The risks that come from hearing too much challenging content, absorbing intense emotions and becoming overwhelmed by the pain in our world. Given that many of us that are drawn to listening roles are sensitive and caring, it is essential that we learn how to approach this work from a more robust standpoint. That we learn how to equip ourselves with tools and perspectives that support us to offer engaged and responsive listening without compromising our own stability.

When I teach listening I do teach active skills, but I compliment them with receptive practice. For me, receptive practice is the other half of listening, the half that makes it possible to sustain quality listening without burning out.

Active skills + Receptive Practice = Sustainable listening.

So what is Receptive Practice?

It is the practice of listening deeply to ourselves whilst we listen to others. We bring a nervous system lens to our listening and we pay attention and take seriously the feedback that our bodies and minds are communicating to us. This supports us to stay present and genuine with ourselves and those that we are supporting.

It is a practice of being 'here', not over 'there'. A practice of staying with, rather than thinking ahead.

For example, even though active skills demonstrate that we are listening, it is very possible to make the right noises and facial expressions, but have our attention somewhere else altogether. Have you noticed that in your own listening?

When we bring a receptive practice lens to our listening, rather than ignoring or judging our distracted behaviour, we get curious when we notice that we have lost focus. We enquire into what is prompting our attention to flee. We ask what is making it hard for us to stay present to what is being shared with us.

The Window of Tolerance

The Window of Tolerance (WOT) is a useful model developed by Dan Siegal to help us recognise nervous system feedback and learn to tolerate higher levels of arousal, thus increasing the time we spend regulated.

We will have different levels of tolerance in different situations, e.g. we might have a larger window for listening one to one, but a much smaller window for listening in a group situation.

The window of tolerance model is based on our stress physiology. So, when our nervous system registers a stressor, our brains activate a stress response and prepare our bodies to fight, flee or freeze. If we get stuck in any of these responses, we are said to be outside of our WOT, either in hyperarousal (fight or flight) or hypoarousal (freeze).

As we start to tune into our experience of being regulated, versus being dysregulated, and become more aware of the stressors that move us between these states, we can learn to take steps to return to regulation.

Over time we'll grow our capacity for tolerating higher levels of stress without becoming dysregulated. In other words, we will increase the size of our window of tolerance.

It is important to debunk the myth that being regulated is synonymous with being calm. It's not. It means having capacity to move fluidly between states of nervous system arousal.

The Window of Tolerance as it applies to listening

Whilst all of us will touch into both hyper and hypo arousal states, most of us have a default mode. We either tend towards fight and flight or we tend towards freeze. As we look in a little more detail as to what might show up in the different segments of the WOT model, have a think about what your default is and how it shows up in your listening habits.

When we are inside the WOT our listening is likely to be engaged and relaxed, a mixture of responsive and easeful. We will be able to process content, be aware of our feelings, stay present to ourselves and the other, and recover well from moments of feeling activated.

Inside of hyperarousal we will start to see patterns of dominating or avoiding contact. We might interrupt or finish the person's sentences, or we might find our attention has wandered onto something else altogether.

Conversly, in hypoarousal we may struggle to feel the connection with the person, we might feel spaced out, shut down or blur our boundaries.

Whilst uncomfortable, this feedback is in fact essential and critical on our journey as listeners. Acknowledging and getting curious about these listening behaviours serves as a bridge between the unconscious and automatic workings of the nervous system, and us being able to recognise the warning signs. We can then take preventative measures against overwhelm and burning out.

Once we become aware of the ways in which our bodies and minds are communicating to us we can go about the next step of responding to them in ways that are kind and regulated. Different habits require different interventions. If you are someone who tends towards freeze. it will make more sense to have tools that help with reconnection and grounding. If you are more wired toward fight, then practices that help discharge energy and connect you to safety will be more effective. The more able we are to notice and respond to our own reactions, the more effective we can then be in the support we offer through listening to others.

"When a suicidal student shared that they would have ended their life that day, had I not invited

to meet with them, I could feel my nervous system move out of my window of tolerance into hyperarousal. I became shaky, sweaty and started to stutter over my words. In response

I allowed myself to pause, sat back in my seat to ground myself, and lengthened the exhale

of my next two breaths. By being able to recognise and restabilse my nervous system

response, I was able to stay present and explore the student's experience, rather than

jumping to conclusions. It transpired they were less at risk to themselves than

I had previously thought, so managing my response ensured that the level of

support I offered was appropriate and that I did not over escalate them to crisis services".

Listening Training Participant 2025

How to practice sustainable listening.

As with anything worth doing well, this is a process that will demand ongoing attention and commitment. I find making changes to anything is helped by breaking the change down into micro steps and spending enough time with each stage of the process.

1. Start with acknowledgement. Spend the next week or as long as you need, simply noticing your listening habits. Notice your reactions to noticing, and if needed, see if you can inject some kindness, curiosity and humanity into the ways that you critique what you find.

2. Get really interested in how your nervous system is impacted in different listening situations. What happens mentally, physically, emotionally and energetically for you? Make a study of yourself and become the expert in your own experimental listening laboratory.

3. Step by step, start with scenarios that have low stakes such as a conversation in a checkout queue. Try something different when you notice that you have reacted whilst listening. Pause, feel your feet on the floor, register the human in front of you, rub yours hands together to discharge energy, or do whatever feels good and can create some feeling of spaciousness around the reactive pattern.

4. Notice what then happens to you and the person that you are listening to.

Support for you going forwards.

There is of course lots more to this important topic.

But this is a start, and, I hope, an encouraging invitation to you to begin or continue with your practice of sustainable listening.

If you would like to work with me further on looking after yourself as a listener, you can do so in the following ways:

✻ Taking part in my annual 6 week Deep Listening Skills and Practice training.

✻ Inviting me to run a training session for your team via jennyrosesmith123@gmail.com

✻ Joining my supervision groups for listeners.

✻ Having 1:1 supervision or deep listening sessions with me

Thank you for reading my work. I would love to hear how this lands with you, so do feel free to get in touch. And I wish you really well in your practice of looking after yourself as you listen to others.