The following excerpt is from Willowgreen Publishing’s book The Art of Listening in a Healing Way by James E. Miller. It is a sequel to the very popular book The Art of Being a Healing Presence.

Healing listeners listen with their eyes.

     When you listen to what someone is saying, you’re likely to rely more on your eyes than your ears. Studies show that over half of the meaning of spoken messages comes from that which can only be seen: how the speaker looks and moves. About a third of the spoken message comes from what the ear can pick up: the tone of the other’s voice, their vocal rhythm, and their rate of speaking. Only 7% of the message comes from the words themselves.
     Seeing is instrumental for hearing in this elemental way: lip reading. Whether you’re conscious of it or not, you continuously read others’ lips as they speak. Everyone does this to varying degrees. Your ears depend upon your eyes to help take in what is spoken as well as to confirm what is heard.
     Even more important is the role of the eyes in interpreting what others are really saying beneath their words by paying attention to their faces. With its intricate weave of muscles, the human face can display more than 8,000 expressions, and it can do so in fractions of a second. In addition, it can do so for fractions of a second, almost faster than can be seen. Almost, but not quite. Our eyes do catch these nuances and pass them on to be filed away in the brain. Our eyes also automatically record speakers’ gestures and gaits, their poses and postures, and send those along to be added to the interpretation.
     Of course, no part of a speaker’s body is more expressive than the eyes. That’s why we naturally spend so much time looking at them as we listen. Herman Melville was right: “The eyes are the gateway to the soul.” Many times your eyes can fathom what your ears can only hope to.

Healing listeners employ their third ear.

     Often there is more to hear than what you normally hear. Your two ears can take in only so much. They can be attuned only to certain wavelengths. After that, your third ear may be the one that hears best.
     The “third ear” idea started with the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche and was later adapted by the psychiatrist Theodor Reik. They described an invisible ear that can hear what our physical ears cannot.
     Have you ever had the sense you knew what another was feeling even if they had not told you, or even if they told you they felt the opposite? Something intuitive within you somehow knows. Beyond the other person’s words and even beneath their silences, you sense the other whispering their truth to you, whether it’s a feeling or a thought. It is your third ear that catches that whisper. That same ear can also hear those whispers that come from deep within you when you’re listening to another in a healing way. Something instinctive within you murmurs.
     These gentle whispers are elusive. If you try too hard to hear them, you’re likely to miss them. They come ever so subtly—on glances, with tiny body movements, through almost imperceptible vocal intonations. Usually they are heard not as a result of your thinking but only after you have given up thinking.
     Listening with your third ear is never an attempt to psychoanalyze someone, nor is it an effort to come up with a solution for another’s problem. It is simply your openness to be sensitive to those messages that may not have been uttered but have been nonetheless sent.

     For much more information about what it means to listen compassionately to others, read the entire book The Art of Listening in a Healing Way. Like all Willowgreen books, discounts are available for quantity purchases.

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