Transformative Listening
Spring 2025
Welcome!
This is a leadership group for transformative listeners.
We will meet every Tuesday from March 11th to April 15th at 9 am PT/ 12 pm ET at this link.
A summary topic for each session is outlined below. Resources and recordings will be available within 2 days of each meeting.
Program Details
Your power comes from creating the conditions that help people meet their goals–not fixing other people’s problems.
This group introduces a framework for creating change by teaching you to apply trauma-informed methods to hear the belief and emotion beneath a story. You’ll learn to identify habits of attention that are often the residue of prior pain, such as sexism, racism, discrimination, violence, poverty, or grief, even intergenerational.
Humans decide who and what to pay attention to based on our perception of threat. This program invites you to imagine:
What does it feel like to be in an environment where we do not feel threatened?
What does it take to create a non-threatening environment?
What becomes possible in the absence of threat?
Session 1
March 11th
How to apply a trauma-informed lens to what you hear
Summary:
Today we talked about the power of the compassionate witness and we practiced identifying our inner critic. Learning to occupy the witness position gives you more capacity to engage with and untangle all the influencing factors that might be present in a particular situation. This is a journey, not a destination. We get better at is as we grow and expand.
For fun, I've provided you with the introductory video on normalizing the process of healing. It should give you a clear idea of what trauma-informed means in our context and how you can use your own healing to encourage it.
Next week, we'll discuss 2 + 2 = 5 and storylessness. I've included a few links for you to research as well if you are interested.
Note: For those of us (MOST of us!) who have used the judgy inner critic to hold ourselves together in times of emotional stress, you might find it helpful to start intentionally noticing this habit. Be gentle with yourself and start to allow yourself more compassion. As you do, you'll probably start to identify more of what belongs to you and what doesn't. If you'd like to know more about this, consider listening to our podcast on the topic.
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To explore more information about trauma and memory, see these pages from the NICABM.
Session 2
March 18th
Working with “plus ones” and acknowledging emotion.
Questions to Ask
Is there anything weird? Like something that doesn’t seem to match up.
Is there a sense of urgency that seems unfounded or unnecessary?
Is there a belief that doesn’t seem to fit or that hasn’t been proven yet?
Is there a response that seems out of sync, either too soft or too rigid or too much or too little?
Session 3
March 25th
How to identify the presence of prior pain based on habits of attention
Potential roles that we can play:
Pilot, Fixer, Judge
Recording for Claire and others who’d like to review
Note
All of us have at least some “fixer” of “empath” tendencies. One of the ways to unravel this pattern is to learn to identify what belongs to us. We have two podcast episodes on this topic that might be of interest. They are only 15 (ish) minutes.
Here is the first and here is the second.
This is a short video from our online course about the gifts of our habits. Remember that nothing is 100% bad or good. We can lessen the impact of a challenge when we view it in its entirety—usually as something that teaches us how to be more fully present in the moment and see ourselves and others beyond the hardships.
Session 4
April 1st
How to apply your own healing in order to listen more deeply
Session 5
April 8th
How to invite redirection without judgement
Themes from Today
How can you be the person who reassures yourself?
Working to act according to our own needs, wants, and resources - and allowing the "pangs" of discomfort to subside. We cannot make the discomfort of believing we are not good enough go away by tending to it as if it is true. It is never true.
Working on being the ground when this charge of overcompensating comes into our sphere. This will come in stages--sometimes as an employee who does what you used to do or sometimes an in-law who is trying really hard to push your buttons. :-) Always and forever--ask yourself: how can I be MORE compassionate to my previous self for having done something similar? How can my groundedness be a model in this situation?
Notice when you jump to judgment as a tool to fix. It's usually just an old habit. This might be something like "well, these are the rules of compensation, deal with it." or it might be like: "Oh my god, this situation is so terrible. This person is doing this so poorly." Even these latter types of judgment will push us to try to fix or compensate when maybe it's not our job to do so. The more space we create between reaction and response, the less judgment we have and the more options become available.
Session 6
April 15th
How to encourage the imagining of new solutions
In the final section of the online course, I cover the “currents underneath” this approach to leadership and listening. Please find below those sections for your review. This information will be up through May, so you can log on and listen as you have time.
When Energy Runs Out
There are several fundamental tenants of the transformative listening approach. In this chapter, we offer you a brief explanation of each.
In this audio recording, we explain how the energy needed to push something away eventually runs out. Please listen and take a few moments to reflect on your experience.
Reflection Questions
Have you ever experienced a moment (either yours or another's) when the energy to keep avoiding something ran out?
Take a moment to write your thoughts on the concept of energy running out.
What makes you feel stable when you witness some type of “unraveling” or realization?
You, the Student
A second fundamental tenant of the transformative listening approach is to work as if a situation is teaching you. In this short audio, we explain how this keeps you in an open and curious position where it is easier to maintain a lack of judgement. You can more easily maintain an awareness of your own experience and you are less likely to feel victimized by what you witness.
Reflection Question
Name a moment when you learned from someone you were supposed to be helping.
A Method to Find Answers
How focusing on the process rather than the solution helps us arrive at more effective answers.
Reflection Questions
Have you ever thought you knew how something should go and then realized you were totally off? How did this feel?
What if it takes a miracle?
This is a last lesson on the idea that what we are healing from might, in fact, be so big that it takes a miracle. This isn't a miracle defined by some random or unpredictable act of a divine force, but rather an idea, a feeling of love, a sense of connection or belonging, or an experience that is so deep and transformative that we have yet to imagine it. There are many benefits to working in the world this way, which is why I end the Transformative Listening program with this short message. :-)
Agreements
Sagely agrees to keep all information you share confidential.
Sagely uses visualizations, meditations, and case studies that are specifically designed for our groups. They build off of each other and require some instruction before use. We ask that you not share these materials. If you feel that a particular item might be of use in your organization, please contact us about adapting it for your setting.
Sagely keeps recordings of sessions on this password-protected site. We ask that you do not share recordings with anyone outside the group. We ask that you keep all information that your group members share confidential. Thank you.