3 Simple, Life Changing Ways You Can Practice Deep Listening

Hi there,

Thank you for being a part of our H+W community and for your support. As you or a family member receives care here, you are also supporting us. This is the interdependent nature of life. By investing in your own healing, you help keep this place alive for others who need it too. Thank you for supporting this place of hope in the community. I hope this is a place of comfort and solace for you.

When I founded Hope+Wellness in my 30s, I had survived a difficult time in my 20s. It was a lonely time — one I almost didn't make it through. And on the other side of it, I found something in myself I hadn't known was there. That experience became the seed of everything you see here. A genuine place. A place where you could truly be yourself, and be supported not only to work through the hard things, but to thrive exactly as you are. To become the fullest expression of yourself.

Thank you for the opportunity to be a part of your journey. There is nothing I am more grateful for.

I'm writing this particular letter to you from Africa, which is a place I never thought I would go in a million years.

Growing up first generation Chinese American, my parents warned me away from it. It was a foreign place to them, where nature was unruly and where their anxieties were filled with thoughts of death. Africa was forbidden — which naturally meant I was destined to go. I've always loved doing things opposite of my parents, like a true Chinese American kid raised by strict parents. :)

The story of how I ended up here is really a story about listening — not just any listening, but listening deeply. To each other. To life itself. I share it because it speaks to something I've been reflecting on lately that I believe is essential to our mental health and well-being: our ability to truly listen. After all, of all the evidence-based treatments and clinical frameworks I have learned over the years, it is deep listening — true, unhurried, human listening — that remains one of the most therapeutic things we can offer another person. Not in place of clinical skill, but alongside it.

For example, many of the teens I've seen over the years for depression or anxiety are really here to be heard. And when they are truly heard, their depression and anxiety lifts profoundly. Because to be listened to deeply is also to be seen. And to be seen is to be able to experience oneself fully. That is not a small thing. That is everything.

The people around them — parents, teachers, friends — love them deeply. But often, as is natural, love comes with projections. An older version of them is still expected, or a younger version that hasn't yet been updated. And so the teen learns that it is easier not to share what is really on their mind because they'll receive a solution before they've finished speaking, or because the truth of what they're feeling is simply too much for the people they love to hold.

The same is true for those navigating depression, or darker moments of suicidal despair. What research and clinical experience both tell us is that presence matters enormously in those moments (see this article I wrote on how important it is to be present with pain). Not fixing. Not advising. Not rushing toward resolution. Simply being there, fully, and engaging in deep listening in a way that says: I am here with you. I understand, in a way that goes beyond words.

The beautiful thing is that this is not reserved for therapists. It is something we can all offer the people we love as well as the humans we simply encounter in the world.

So, here's the story.

About two years ago, I got into a taxi after a long flight back to Baltimore. Bleary-eyed and exhausted, I stepped out into the night at 2am when a man walked quickly toward me, took my luggage, and said, come with me, I'm your driver.

I paused.

I hadn't ordered a driver. I had planned to take an Uber. I didn't know this man. By every reasonable measure, getting into a car with a demanding stranger at 2am was not a sensible idea.

And yet.

My body was calm. There was something about this man — determined, businesslike, and warm all at once — that I couldn't quite name but couldn't ignore either. The power of listening to your body, to your gut, is a story for another Macaroni + Cheese post. But in that moment, I listened to someplace deep inside myself — one that I trust beyond logic. The same one that led me to found Hope+Wellness.

That decision opened up my life in unexpected ways.

So I followed him to the most luxurious SUV I'd ever sat in. The kind reserved for VIPs and dignitaries. And we drove off into the night.

He was a driver for dignitaries, filling a few spare hours before his next pickup. In the car, he began to speak with a melodious accent I couldn't quite place. I asked where he was from.

Africa! he proclaimed — and then asked me my name.

Victoria, I told him.

He lit up. Well. You have to go to Victoria Falls.

Where's that? I asked.

ZIMBABWE.

I smiled politely. As I mentioned, traveling to Africa had never been an interest of mine — or anything I had ever seriously considered. I had been raised to be afraid of it. Uh, cool, I said.

He looked at me. You have to go, he said. You are named Victoria.

I laughed. Well — tell me about Africa.

And he did. He described the land, the animals, nature in its fullest and richest expression. There was something in the sound of his voice, in the tone of it — looking back, it may have been love. I had never heard Africa described this way. I told him my family was from Taiwan, so that was more where I had imagined going to connect with my roots.

No it's not, he said. Your homeland is Africa.

What are you talking about? I said.

WE ARE ALL FROM AFRICA, he proclaimed — his voice filling that entire SUV with his presence.

In that moment, I heard him. I really heard him — somewhere deep within me. It was an aha moment. We are all from Africa. I am from Africa. You are from Africa. It is the birthplace of our species. And it is important, as he said, to go and see this homeland for oneself. To see where our ancestors are from. To understand where you come from, what your roots are, the greater context of your existence within the bigger picture of life — is to more deeply understand and know yourself. It is to understand what it means to be human.

And as a clinical psychologist deeply in love with my craft, I am in the practice ultimately, of being human. Of helping other humans access their deepest humanity — their love, their potential — to transcend mental health challenges and reach what is most deeply within them.

So here I am, writing this to you from Africa.

It has been a profoundly life changing trip. I have witnessed so many beautiful things here — things that have deepened my understanding of what it truly means to be human. I am still processing it all — what it means to spend time immersed in nature for our mental health, the things I witnessed, the things I felt, as I travel through our human homeland. There is so much I would love to share with you, and I will in a future post. But for now, here is what that night in the back of that SUV taught me about deep listening:

Lesson one: listen to your body — it is an instrument of information.

Intuition lives in the gut. Your body is constantly giving you information — are the hairs on the back of your neck standing up? Is your chest tight? Is there a quiet calm beneath the noise of your thoughts? These are somatic signals — messages from the body — and they are worth paying attention to. I want to be thoughtful here, because this is nuanced. For some of us, particularly those who have experienced trauma, somatic signals can feel confusing or overwhelming — and learning to work with them is exactly the kind of thing therapy can support. But in general, learning to tune in to what your body is telling you, and distinguishing that from fear, conditioning, or anxiety, is one of the most powerful things you can do for your safety, your relationships, and your well-being.

People refer to this skill as intuition. It is a real skill — not a mystical one — and it can be developed. Western society often dismisses it. But eastern traditions have honored somatic wisdom for centuries. And for good reason. Listening to your intuition creates alignment — because you are listening to the truth inside you. By knowing what your truth is, you can implement it. You can live it. And life, at its most essential, is about being aligned with your truth.

Lesson two: be open, curious, and non-judgmental.

Be aware of the projections you carry inside yourself — the stories, the conditioning, the assumptions. Mine were loud that night. I had been raised to fear Africa, and that fear was present in the car with me. Deep listening doesn't ask you to pretend those projections aren't there. It asks you to know they are there, name them quietly to yourself, and choose openness and curiosity anyway.

But here is the deeper point: this is not something you think your way into. It is something you must actually become — not in the thinking mind, but in a place within you that is deeper. In your presence. You must actually be this openness and curiosity, embody it, inhabit it, rather than simply intending it. That is the difference between listening that transforms and listening that merely appears polite.

This is a profound skill — for your family, your friends, your loved ones, your professional and business life. But most fundamentally, simply as a human being learning to truly listen to another.

Lesson three: listen beyond words, into the heart.

He wasn't just telling me about Africa. He was sharing something he loved. There was a frequency in his voice — looking back, it may have been love — that I would have missed entirely if I had only been listening to the information. Deep listening means tuning in to the emotion beneath what is being said. The energy of the exchange itself. What is unspoken. That is where the real communication lives.

We live in divisive times, where judging others can feel almost righteous. But when we slow down and really listen, something surprising happens. Underneath all the noise, we find shared ground. Shared worries. Love for the people in our lives. A desire for things to be better. You don't have to agree with someone to listen to them with an open heart. And that openness is its own form of action in the world. Deep listening is the ground for connection, and in turn, connection with one another is ultimately, what heals because there is a piece of each of us waiting to be discovered within the other.

The adventure of life is deeply related to our ability to listen to it, not just to the words, but to the moments, the people, the quiet invitations that arrive when we least expect them.

This month, I invite you to begin a deep listening practice of your own. Who are the people around you that you'd like to feel closer to? What have they been saying — and how might you listen more deeply, beyond the words, into the heart? Pay attention to how this practice begins to open up your life. Your connections. Your love. Your sense of well-being.

In my next letter I'll share some practical tips for cultivating this practice. Until then, I'm wishing you well from somewhere beautiful and unexpected.

best,

Dr. Victoria Ranade, PhD, MBA, ABPP
President, Hope+Wellness