Empathic Listening, with Mark Labberton

“If I'm actually seeing you and then I'm hearing you, then it doubles the thickness of that communication moment.”

In this Conversing Short, Mark Labberton reflects on the full-bodied, empathetic nature of listening and the communication process. He reflects on good listening, the empathy it requires, and what it means to truly recognize and successfully understand each other.

Listening and perceiving are bound up together in a fundamental way, offering us an opportunity to enter into another’s experience, truly seeing and recognizing them and receiving who they are.

About Conversing Shorts

“In between my longer conversations with people who fascinate and inspire and challenge me, I share a short personal reflection, a focused episode that brings you the ideas, stories, questions, ponderings, and perspectives that animate Conversing and give voice to the purpose and heart of the show. Thanks for listening with me.”

About Mark Labberton

Mark Labberton is the Clifford L. Penner Presidential Chair Emeritus and Professor Emeritus of Preaching at Fuller Seminary. He served as Fuller’s fifth president from 2013 to 2022. He’s the host of Conversing.

Show Notes

• “Listening is almost always seeing.”
• Full-bodied listening and how perception adds to our understanding of each other
• “If I'm actually seeing you and then I'm hearing you, then it doubles the thickness of that communication moment.”
• Examples of bad listening: “pinning words on the speaker.”
• Recognition for the speaker: “My listening reflects that I'm actually perceiving them.”
• The fun and joyful work of communication
• Total body experience of listening and perceiving is about empathy.
• Empathy and entering the speaker’s world and experience
• The difference empathy makes
• “Empathy, even when you're wanting to give it doesn't make it automatic.  It often has to be something that emerges out of the communication experience itself.”
• Hearing, perception, and full-bodied communication
• “How we see and receive another person’s being…”
• Achieving a communication breakthrough: “Oh, I see!”
• ”It is like amazing grace is playing in the background. And I want to say ‘I once was blind, but now I see’ that's what it feels like a real revelatory discovery.”

Production Credits

Conversing is produced and distributed in partnership with Comment magazine and Fuller Seminary.