This reflection is part of The Listening Series, a collection of practices for going deeper in conversations. Level 1 introduces three foundational tools: playback, clean questions and summarising the essence. Level 2 goes beneath the surface of words into energy, silence and embodied awareness. Each post in this level can be read alone, or together as steps that deepen your listening practice. Level 3 transformational listening describes some tools that help people give shape to emotions, listen without reaching alignment and listen in ways that allow another’s truth to transform your views. It builds on the foundations of Levels 1 and 2, but each piece also stands on its own.
Start with Yourself
Sometimes it is hard to pin down exactly how you feel. You begin your day and step into conversations carrying an attitude you haven’t named. Is it anxiety? Frustration? Excitement? Uncertainty?
Left unacknowledged, those emotions may reveal themselves at the wrong moment. Sharp words in a meeting. Irritability at home. Distraction when someone needs your attention. Responsible leadership also means holding yourself accountable for your mental health and listening inward. You can’t hold space for someone else if you have never held space for yourself.
How To Practice It
- Grounding Rituals
Before you can listen inward, it helps to have simple rituals that help you come back into yourself and connect you with who you truly are. These are sometimes called grounding rituals. Breathing exercises. A short walk. A journaling routine.
It might be the practice of pausing before you start your day to place both feet firmly on the ground while sitting comfortably with your palms open and relaxed. You might breathe in the aroma of coffee or chai drifting from the worktop, listen to the sound of the city coming alive, and notice the sky turning a gentle pink with the rising sun.
Or perhaps you’re a night owl. After the children are put to bed and the kitchen is tidied, you take a shower and sit on the edge of the mattress with your bare feet planted on the carpet, appreciating the silence of the home in a city that never sleeps.
These rituals create muscle memory. They make checking in with yourself more accessible because your body already knows how to settle.
- Inner Listening
Once you are grounded, scan yourself from head to toe. Notice where emotions live as sensations in your body.
Getting started can be as simple as asking yourself questions:
What’s going on with me today?
How’s my head?
How’s my heart?
How about my breathing?
What about my joints?
Where’s my energy at?
It may feel strange to notice there’s a knot in your stomach or a tightness across your shoulders. It may even feel silly to attach emotions to these sensations but with practice, you begin to read your body more clearly and connect sensations to the emotions underneath. Soon you will recognise whether a headache means you need to check your prescription, or whether it is the way your body carries rage.
- Supplement with the Emotion Wheel
It doesn’t matter whether you’re new to inner listening or a seasoned pro. Naming feelings is not easy. It requires grounding, openness to the truth of your body and a willingness to be honest with yourself while remaining curious about who you are or who you are becoming.
The emotion wheel can help. My brother introduced me to it and I was struck by its elegance and power.
The wheel maps broad categories like joy, sadness, anger and fear into more specific emotions such as grief, betrayal, anticipation or serenity.
Image: “The Feeling Wheel” by Gloria Willcox, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons
Does this word really describe what I am feeling?
If yes, accept it. If not, keep noticing until something fits. Are you “mad” or is it closer “hostile” or “frustrated”? Naming brings clarity, and clarity shines the light on your options forwards.
- The Toolkit
Naming is only the beginning. The harder part is working with what you find. This is where your toolkit matters.
It might include exercise, sleep, nourishment, stress management, counselling, networks of friends, community activities, reading or journaling. The list is diverse and hopefully, exciting. What new areas of your life will open up to you through these horizons?
Grounding rituals can become fertile soil where you realign with your core values and beliefs. From that place you can improve your agility, quickly identify opportunities that are compelling and pivot away from choices less well suited to your unique contribution.
The wheel helps you name your feelings. The toolkit helps you deal with them. Grounding rituals ensure you build the muscle memory to keep doing both.
This is not less, but more of who you are and who you are becoming. This is deep listening to your conversation with yourself.
Why It Matters
When emotions remain vague, they simmer beneath the surface and often spill into interactions unintentionally. By giving them form with language and by decoding sensations in the body, you bring them into awareness where they can be acknowledged and worked with.
This is not indulgence. It is responsibility. Leaders who listen to themselves are less likely to project, misinterpret or overreact. They show up with clarity to learn and lead.
Coaching tip: Start your day with a short self-scan. Ground your feet. Take some deep cleansing breaths. Take your time and carefully scan your body from top to toe in your mind’s eye. Glance at the emotion wheel to see which territory resonates. Name what resonates and give yourself the choice to decide how to carry it into your day or how to set it down. Deep listening begins with inner listening.