Just Listening
Active Listening
Listening without giving advice or having an answer
Listening to what’s being said & what is being withheld
Listening without judgement
Listening with compassion & empathy
Listening with honour & respect
Listening whilst being fully present
Listening with curiousness
- Katherine Fairest
Just listening is simple – two people sitting or standing together, a listener and a person with a story to share. This approach can be facilitated anywhere, any time and in any community.
Just listening aims to demonstrate the value of connection through listening and being heard.
Listening can be a just exercise, offering justice both to the person narrating their personal reality and to the person listening. In the process of deep listening we hear both ourselves and the other person and can honour the truth of each person.
Just Listening is a free community listening project that seeks to offer justice in listening and connection through this meaningful action.
Humane Clinic is hosting Just Listening. We are not offering instructions on how to facilitate Just Listening. Instead, we are inviting you to hear your own ideas as to how you might offer Listening in your own community, in reflection of our ideas and experiences of facilitating Just Listening in our communities.
The short video introductions are for encouragement and to build confidence to step forward into the wonderful space of listening and being heard as an opportunity to connect as mutual humans on shared paths.
(Just Listening is not a crisis mental health service. Humane Clinic accepts no responsibility for the experiences of individuals when seeking to listening to others and we strongly advise that individuals and communities consider what they need to safely facilitate community listening, including responding to a person in a mental health crisis. Local community resources will be the best response and therefore specific advice on re sources in different communities is not provided - please consider local responses prior to facilitating a Just Listening informed space)