The Hunger For Deep Conversation: Reprise
THE HUNGER FOR DEEP CONVERSATION: REPRISE
Marjorie Schuman, Ph.D.
Hunger for connection is also hunger for deep conversation
To be received, listened deeply to, understood
This is how new meanings come into being.
Introduction: The Hunger for Deep Conversation
In earlier issues of this Newsletter, I have written about on the process I go through as I “inquire deeply” about something. I will begin this Reprise with a recap and summary of my previous essay “The Hunger For Deep Conversation” : [i]
- An inquiry topic feels less like something I choose than it does about something which chooses me. I have likened the process to getting pregnant: the implanting of an idea which begins to grow within me.
- Early on, a new inquiry often announces itself with a felt sense of urgency and the impulse to write. This experience is a signal to me that there is something I am trying to understand, although at first I may have little idea what. The felt sense of urgency is associated with a growing interest– or even preoccupation with– discovering where the emotional charge is coming from.
- To further my process, I often initiate conversation with others about my topic until at some point it feels as though my thoughts “ask” to be written down. At this point, the inquiry transitions into written form. It then matures over the course of successive written drafts until finally I feel satisfied by the meaning which has taken shape and a new issue of this Newsletter is born.
The inquiry which is the subject of this essay is, again, the hunger for deep conversation. At the heart of this inquiry is the basic question, “what wants or needs to be spoken, and why?” And, as with every inquiry I engage in, there is a sense that there is something within me which wants/needs to be understood, something which feels important, and which prompts me to seek out dialogue with others.
I heard myself express this experience to a friend in the following way:
My experience is that I have a fundamental need for deep conversation. I know that I am in search of something and my intuition tells me that there is a conversation(s) I am looking for that will meet this need. I feel a bit like Cinderella waiting for the right conversational slipper, one which will bring clarity to something inchoate in me that wants to be expressed. It’s like something wanting to be born; something incipient. But I’m at a loss about what exactly I need to say or who I could say it to.
As I heard what I said, several things stood out . First, the theme of pregnancy and birth. Next, the articulation of a longing to be deeply seen and heard by another. And last, my search for the meaning of my hunger for deep conversation. Clearly, there was something I was trying to work out in myself; something about my thoughts and feelings which I was trying to make sense of and organize.
At its heart, the hunger for deep conversation reflects the deeply human need to be received, listened deeply to, and understood. From infancy onward, being understood is essential to our development. Indeed, we need to be deeply known by another in order to grow. In this, each of us is like a thirsty plant which needs to be watered by the light of another’s attention.
The Experience of Conversational Depth
There is something vital in the intimacy we have when we “mix minds” [ii] with certain particular others. Deep conversational resonance reflects a complex interpersonal chemistry of speaking, listening, and listening to the other’s listening. When we feel both deeply known and accepted by another, we feel fundamentally affirmed and validated. [iii] Indeed, it is not hyperbolic to say that we are “listened into being” through our relational connection with others.[iv]
Our ability to have a deep conversation with someone depends in part on the shared language we develop with others whom we come to know well. But it is important to emphasize that language and the symbolic meanings it expresses are only one layer of what transpires in conversation. Beyond spoken words, conversations rely heavily on nonverbal communication, which often carries the bulk of the emotional and relational meaning. These elements shape how we perceive connection and how we interpret what is spoken.
Conversation is much more than an exchange of ideas. In deep conversation, we feel recognized by another person in a way that is immediate and unmistakable. We feel felt by the other. This quality of connection can be transformative. Psychoanalysts have called such experiences “moments of meeting” [v]. The first and formative “moment of meeting” is the one that occurs in the first moments after birth, when the newborn looks into the eyes of a mother who is looking back.
Another important dimension of some moments of meeting is the quality of being which in Buddhism is called “Presence”. Rather than a passive state of just “being”, presence is an engaged state of being aware in a way which is open, attentive, and receptive. Presence involves a heightened awareness of being which is directly conveyed in the conversational space we share with another. It is this deeply felt sense of intersubjective presence that best epitomizes my experience of conversations that feel most alive.
In searching for language to describe what I mean by deep conversation, I settled on an idiosyncratic new punctuation: “ !! ”.
!! expresses my felt sense of discovering something previously unknown; the felt sense of a new meaning emerging from someplace deep within me.
What Do I Want To Talk About?
As I reflected on my experience of deep conversation and what I hunger to find there, I first thought about how often I have used conversation to explore something I find problematic. Sorting out conflicts and confusions is much easier when we express our experience to a skilled listening other. This kind of unpacking of problems in dialogue is, of course, the basic premise of psychotherapy. It is, in my experience, a very deep form of interpersonal intimacy.
But what I mostly seek in deep conversations these days goes beyond what is personal and psychological. It is most often introspective, philosophical, and existential. My quest for deep conversation is infused by my quest for deep meaning. This hunger seems intrinsically connected to my inward, meditative nature. I am drawn towards the introspective examination of my own conscious thoughts and feelings. [vi] In a humorous vein, I think of this as my need to channel my inner philosopher.
What I have also observed in myself is that the quest for deep meaning is closely aligned with my need to know. When there is a topic I want to understand more deeply, my go-to strategy is to intentionally seek out and sustain a process of dialogue with someone smart who shares the same area of interest. Such conversations provide a “relational home”[vii] in which my understanding can deepen beyond its current boundaries. [viii]
In addition to whatever insights are contributed by my conversational other, part of the joy I get from deep conversation has to do with the sense of amazement I experience about my own emergent thoughts, often unknown to me before hearing the words come out of my mouth.
In deep conversation, I get to discover what I do not yet know that I know!!
Becoming Real: The Ontological Dimension of Deep Conversation
When I began this inquiry, my question was “what wants or needs to be spoken, and why?” By the end of the inquiry, a different but equally important question came into focus: “what wants to come into being, and how does deep conversation help it emerge?”
Inquiry begins with questions, but the most important thing we receive in deep conversation is not simply answers. Something in us may shift through the experience of being deeply received and understood. New meanings, new understandings, or even new experiences of ourselves may emerge. In this sense, deep conversation does not merely help us express who we are; it helps us become who we are.
I am reminded here of the wonderful title of a book by the mystical philosopher G. Gurdjieff: “Life is real only then, when I “am”. [ix] In this context, the hunger for deep conversation reveals itself as the need to feel Real and to become real as ourselves. We come into being when our words are heard and received in a way that enlarges our understanding of ourselves.
Conversation is a generative act; no one knows in advance what will come out of it. Indeed, what turns out to be most significant in a conversation is often something we could not have anticipated. Through such moments of deep conversation, we become more fully alive as ourselves.
[ii] Jennings, P. (2010) Mixing Minds: The Power of Relationship in Psychoanalysis and Buddhism. Wisdom Press, Somerville, MA
[iii] I am reminded here of Carl Roger’s emphasis on the experience of unconditional positive regard.
[iv] https://www.drmarjorieschuman.com/listened-into-being-oct-2021/
[v] Daniel Stern
vii] “Relational home” is a term taken from the work of Robert Stolorow.
[viii] In the recent past, I have used AI as my conversational partner in dialogue.
[ix] This quote is taken from the title of the book by Gurdjieff, G. I. (1981) Life Is Real Only Then, When “I Am” . All and Everything, Third Series). New York: Triangle Editions / E.P. Dutton.