How to Listen to Other People’s Stories

How to Listen to Other People’s Stories

My most important time as an elementary school teacher was spent kneeling beside children during Writing Workshop, making the simplest but deeply profound request, “Tell me your story.” As the plotlines unfolded, in pictures and in words, narratives fell atop the page - stories of police siren alarm clocks that abated sleep, and caregivers, who undoubtedly cared, but were unable to extricate themselves from their own trauma, so their children put down the baseball gloves and picked up the role of parent instead. Inside these tellings, I wasn’t able to alter the plotlines, but I was able to hold space for the story, and space holding creates room for people to breathe. 

As a middle school principal, the storytelling continued over lunches. On days without meetings, the best days of all, I would spread a large quilt across my office floor and picnic with tweens and teenagers as they told stories of their own timelines. It was an open invitation, so those who arrived, tray or brown bag in hand, did so of their own volition, ready to share or perhaps just listen, both options offering powerful paths to belonging. During those lunches, I too found a community of caring as our storylines started to knit together and form a type of safety net, making us all feel like someone just might just catch us if we fell. 

Today, as a professor, researcher, and coach - stories still frame my interactions. My on-campus days are spent in class or in my office, door open, as students, aspiring classroom teachers to be, stream in and out, catching me up on their daily lives and the stories of the children they are now learning beside in their practicum classrooms. 

As a researcher, my work is also grounded in story. Over the last year, our research team has collected hundreds of anonymous stories of students who were sexually assaulted on college campuses. Most of these stories, over 60%, are traumas that were never reported, because the survivor was unsure of the care in which their story would be held. And that frame of thinking is not unwarranted, for survivors across the United States are often questioned and accused instead of comforted and believed.  

And it is for these reasons that we must develop our skills as story listeners. 

Surprisingly, I cannot attribute my education as a teacher or coach to learning how to hold space for people. Instead, it was my training as a researcher, specifically a Narrative Inquiry researcher, that taught me how to listen. Narrative Inquiry, in short, is a methodology in which we collect the stories of individuals who have experienced a shared phenomenon such as sexual assault, workplace abuse, or divorce. By collecting a large number of stories, we search for the plotlines within individual narratives and across stories, in search of throughlines that enable us to identify the essence of the larger story, and through those insights, develop approaches to better serve those in crisis. 

Three research practices, in particular, help me carry out that work today as a professor, researcher, parent, partner, and friend:  

1. First, as a Narrative Inquiry researcher, I do not start with a hypothesis or preconceived notion of what I will learn. The abandonment of that positivist tradition allows me to be fully open to what I will hear, for I am not looking to prove my own predictions. 

2. Second, as a Narrative Inquiry researcher, I do not fill our conversations or surveys with questions. Instead, I simply make one request, “Tell me your story in a way that makes sense to you.” This positioning is purposeful, for its open nature avoids the inherent pitfalls of shaping people’s answers by the types of questions we ask and the word choices we make. When people tell their stories on their own terms, the plotlines that are most important to them make it into the telling instead of restricting what they have to say within the boundaries we constructed. To fully understand the story of another, you must make space for unrestricted sharings.  

3. Third, as a Narrative Inquiry researcher, I do not interrupt the storyteller with questions or comments. It is not unusual for stories to go on for several hours. This positioning allows me to relinquish my role as problem-solver, and instead be fully present and open to what they have to share - abandoning my need to question, judge, or plan a rebuttal. Almost without exception, the teller will sense this unique dynamic and will remark on the healing they felt and the insights they garnered by having the opportunity to tell their story in full and without interruption. 

I leave you with an invitation. 

As you go forth in the world today, ask that child in your classroom, that colleague at work, or that stranger at tonight’s cocktail party to “Tell me your story,” without putting any parameters on the telling. If they ask you, somewhat perplexed, “What story should I tell?” - politely shrug and reply - “The story that matters most to you today.” Then sit back and wait for a transformation, both within you and the teller, while you abandon the banality that so often frames our interactions and truly connect as people with important narratives to share. 

Two Read

This week I am reading: 

1. What If You Could Do It All Over: The Uncanny Allure of Unlived Lives by Joshua Rothman (In the New Yorker)

2. Old Friend From Far Away by Natalie Goldberg 

Find Out More About Story Coaching

I use “storying” to coach adolescents and adults, inviting them to tell the stories most impacting their lives today, and then together we deconstruct the plotlines in a way that provides insights into past events and guidance on how to write the next chapters. If you have been bullied at work or at school, if you are navigating a transition to a new job or experience, or you simply want to learn more about how story coaching works, please visit my website or email me at dorothysuskind@gmail.com.

Participate in My Current Study on Workplace Bullying and Its Impact on Belonging 

To deepen my understanding of the impact of workplace bullying on belonging, I have launched a new research study. If you would like to participate anonymously in this study, please click this LINK. I have my university’s IRB approval to do this work. 

Reach Out With Questions and Ideas

I love hearing from readers, so please don’t hesitate to reach out to say hello, ask questions, or suggest topics for me to write about next ~ dorothysuskind@gmail.com.