Foundational to the human experience, storytelling and listening allows the sharing of information, communicates emotion, and engenders compassion. Stories provide access to a common humanity. People seek affiliation as an essential part of the human experience and find deeper connections. Hence, the far-reaching application of successful storytelling enjoyed throughout the fields of nursing, community organizing, diversity and inclusion, restorative justice, political activism, and peace building. Experienced in and regulated by the amygdala, storytelling and story listening also serve a biological function.⁷ Neural coupling, the process by which neural patterns of the storyteller mirror those of the story listener, provides evidence of the hard-wired need and nature of sharing stories. Through neural coupling, the brain of the storyteller aligns itself with the brain of the listener.⁸ Neuroscience research recently uncovered that social isolation manifests itself in a manner nearly identical to physical pain;⁹ the feeling of belonging or not belonging impacts one’s sense of well-being.

An inextricable link exists between expressing oneself and listening to stories. Dialogue with others provides one with broader as well as alternate perspectives allowing for the creation of richer interpretations.¹⁰ The act of listening moves people closer; “it helps us become more whole, more healthy, more holy.”¹¹ And the opposite may also prove true. Not feeling listened to causes fragmentation, and fragmentation causes suffering.^10–11 As an illustration of fragmentation, partisan politics in the national landscape divides Americans and limits rational discourse between members of different parties. Globally, the deterioration of world peace continues for the fourth consecutive year.¹² Thich Nhat Hanh, Vietnamese Buddhist Monk and peace activist states:

Simply stated, putting emotions and experience into words improves one’s physical and mental health. Having those emotions and experience heard by a listener trained to “lay aside themself”¹⁴ may enable the storyteller to feel heard and acknowledged. Having that need met may in turn allow for the fulfillment of higher levels of psychological needs.¹⁵ The new field of narrative medicine trains professionals “to acknowledge, absorb, interpret, and act on the stories and plights of others.”¹⁶ While much has been written about the “potential qualities, characteristics, and abilities that the role of the sender must possess in order to achieve status as a competent communicator, relatively little information is available for individuals to understand what is required of them in their role of receiver to achieve similar communicative status.”¹⁷

Listening as a skill requires purposeful practice to develop, and many consider it an essential component of one’s professional practice.¹⁸ Listening happens at 6 different levels determined by one’s goal for the interaction.¹⁹     Listening Levels

Through empathic listening, story listeners can help provide storytellers the space to feel heard, thus enabling them to be challenged to reflect from multiple perspectives. Deep meaningful learning can emerge from this process. The next section presents transformative learning as a goal of story listening, and the subsequent sections present examples of structured formats from which to facilitate transformative learning: coaching and Lego Serious Play (LSP).

Stories help people make meaning of experiences and the world around them. Embedded in those stories are long-held social constructs—unwittingly made assumptions and habitual ways of thinking. Transformative learning is “learning that transforms problematic frames of references—sets of fixed assumptions and expectations—to make them more inclusive, discriminating, open, reflective, and emotionally able to change.”²⁰ It is often difficult to challenge these “habitual expectations or ‘meaning perspectives’ (created by ideologies, learning styles, neurotic self-deceptions)…that govern the activities of perceiving, comprehending and remembering.”²¹ However, having a dedicated listener can help us to gain some mental distance from the story and challenge our own meaning-making schemes. Mental distance can enable the story holder to make their story object—to view it from the balcony which enables them to gain a broader perspective.

A storyteller can make their story object by conceptualizing it as a metaphor or building it as an abstract model or other physical metaphor. One can also participate in critical reflection, where one’s assumptions surface for testing and analysis.²² This may enable storytellers to see their own unconscious bias or thinking that comprises their current method of meaning making. Having a dedicated listener provides the teller with a way to hold the story as object so they may reflect upon it, challenge the assumptions underlying and within the story, reshape it, and take control of it.

Coaching, a facilitation method capable of fostering transformative learning, can help storytellers obtain deeper understanding in light of a complex challenge or obstacle, reflect critically upon their assumptions, and achieve strategic insight for informed decision-making and action. A coaching session looks like “a dialogue between a facilitator (coach) and a participant (client) where the majority of interventions used by the facilitator are open [ended] questions which are aimed at stimulating the self-awareness and personal responsibility of the participant”.²³ The coach’s role as a facilitator sees them guide self-discovery through shaping open-ended questions, differing from the more directive role a trainer or mentor may take.²³ Effective coaching and coaches rely more on the process than the subject matter expertise or experience in the challenge the storyteller faces.

A powerful tool, the ORID framework,²⁴ can aid in the facilitation of a coaching conversation, one-on-one or in group settings. ORID involves 4 stages of open-ended questions.     ORID Questioning framework

The effective application of the ORID framework to facilitate a coaching conversation requires the storyteller to begin by sharing their story while the story listener(s) listen, take notes, and write down ORID questions. These questions should enable the storyteller to obtain further understanding on gaps of content, identify assumptions, question assumptions, and think of options/possibilities yet available to the storyteller.²⁵ This provides the space for the storyteller to share without interruption and enables the story listener(s) to reflect and craft meaningful questions. Then, the story listener(s) ask(s) ORID questions (if in a group can be a round robin format) in an attempt to guide the storyteller through the 4 stages. The goal of the listener is to facilitate the storyteller achieving their own insights (not a directed answer or solution) and to make an informed decision on next steps. Although the framework denotes an ordered process, authentic discourse does not follow such a structure. An organic conversation proves a more impactful application of the model. The storyteller receives the supports and challenges needed to achieve insight through the listening and inquiry of the coach. The storyteller may then take personal ownership of and action on their new perspective.

The LSP methodology enables participants to solve wicked problems through strategy and/or team development. However, many also use this method—in unique ways and with great success—for facilitating learning.²⁶ It has the potential to produce more significant learning through the creation of metaphors in the form of LEGO models. The LSP encompasses multiple methods recognized to foster transformative learning, including the power of play, building metaphors, engaging in critical reflection, sharing in storytelling, and sparking the imagination. The potential for transformative learning in this method stands ready to expand the way in which one makes meaning.²⁷

The play portion of LSP (ie, building Lego models) activates a positive affect, potentially leading to the psychological state of flow, or the optimal state for human experience/performance where creativity, productivity, and happiness may occur.²⁸ The social component and improvisational building of this activity may also lead to an increased level of oxytocin.²⁹ Oxytocin produced in this state can improve one’s ability to understand the emotions of another and therefore listen more empathically.³⁰ One might then conclude that the social component of storytelling and the flow state that can accompany play increase one’s ability to achieve peak experience and better understand the other with empathic listening.

LSP also facilitates critical self-reflection by prompting participants to reframe the definition of a problem through the creation of a metaphor (ie, a LEGO model). As participants explain their models to the other participants, the reassessment of how one poses problems orients to perceive, know, believe, feel, and act²² surfaces during the creation, questioning, and modification to the LEGO models or in the metaphors that represent the storyteller’s complex idea more simply.²² The connection between metaphor, critical reflection, and transformative learning emerges in “the recognition, identification, and creation of metaphors by adult learners.”³¹

The social process involved in the storytelling element of LSP also fosters transformative learning.³² As participants share their personal experience in the stories used to explain their models, the listeners respond with authentic curiosity and care. The conveyance of one’s story through the 3-dimensional metaphor can enhance the others’ ability to listen empathically.

The process becomes powerful when the listeners pose questions to clarify the storyteller’s experience. Collectively, all parties seek further depth, clarity, breadth, and experiment with new meaning.

Lastly, imagination is an integral part of understanding the unknown and making meaning.³³ The process of physically building ideas via Lego models allows the storyteller’s embodied knowledge to surface through their hands rather than in their mind, leading them in the thinking process.³⁴ Engaging the imagination and creativity inherent to artistic expression takes us “out of our heads and into our bodies, hearts, and souls in ways that allow us to connect more deeply with self and others.”³³ This medium and method enables participants to create and reflect on a physical thing that could represent their unconscious, emotional, and intuitive ways of knowing. One does not need to possess expert artistic skills to fully express themselves, because LEGO provides pieces to click together and assign a personal or shared story, meaning, and metaphor.

By critically reflecting through the construction of metaphors and the story listeners asking open-ended ORID questions to aid in the deconstruction of surfaced assumptions, storytellers may then physically change their represented assumptions to a more ideal, tested, and validated configuration. By building new metaphors and identities through this medium, one might now hold the story, or idea as object, and no longer remain subject to it.

To what end do we tell, share, and listen to others and their stories? Stories can help in healing the storyteller, as well as provide learning for the listener and storyteller alike. Let’s not forget the possibility for strengthening everyday relationships by providing the gift to your partner of feeling heard. For the storyteller, the structure acts as an enabler for an optimal experience and allows them to truly feel heard. And in feeling heard, they gain objectivity and perspective to the story—by surfacing then testing assumptions through questioning and critical reflection. By purposefully practicing listening and trusting in a process that encourages story listening, transformative learning can emerge.

As professionals, listening becomes both a diagnostic tool and the intervention. In listening, the facilitator creates an environment ripe for learning for the storyteller and other story listeners. And the act of creating a structure for others to participate in the listening allows them to delve into their own transformative experience. Hearing the stories of others allows for the recognition of options for new roles, relationships, and actions as well as examples for implementing their own plan.