Mantra with Jemma Sbeg - I Listen to Understand, Not Just to Reply

Episode Date: September 22, 2025

This week's mantra is: "I Listen to Understand, Not Just to Reply." In a world that often prioritizes quick responses and expressing our own opinions, true connection stems from a deeper place: the willingness to truly hear and comprehend another's perspective. Active listening is a powerful skill that transforms relationships, fosters empathy, and opens doors to richer conversations. In this episode of Mantra, we'll explore what it means to quiet your own internal dialogue, lean into curiosity, and create space for genuine understanding in every interaction. Mantra is an OpenMind Original Podcast, powered by PAVE Studios. Listen wherever you get your podcasts. For ad-free listening and early access to episodes, subscribe to OpenMind+ on Apple Podcasts. Don’t miss out on all things Mantra! Instagram: @mantraopenmind | @OpenMindStudios TikTok: @OpenMind Facebook: @0penmindstudios X: @OpenMindStudios YouTube: @OpenMind_Studios To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This is Open Mind. Welcome to a brand new week. Here is your mantra. I listen to understand, not just to reply. I'm Jemis Begg, and every Monday I give you a simple but powerful phrase to consider and bring into your life. a philosophy to guide you in the week ahead and hopefully even beyond. In each episode, I unpack what our mantra really means, how it has shown up in my life,

and how you can bring it into yours with journal prompts and a weekly challenge to help you take this mantra and put it into action. At Open Mind, we value your support, so please make sure to share your thoughts on social media and remember to rate, review and follow mantra to help others discover the show. For more exclusive content, monthly bonus episodes, early access, and ad-free listening, join our Open Mind Plus community on Apple Podcasts.

Each month I respond to your questions and comments, as some of you guys know, in a special bonus episode, so feel free to leave a comment, a dilemma, a question, whatever it is, in the comment section of this episode or DM me on Instagram at Mantra Open Mind to be featured. Stick around. We'll be right back after this short pause. The Twisted Tale of Amanda Knox is an eight-episode Hulu original limited series that blends gripping pacing with emotional complexity, offering a dramatized look as it revisits the wrongful conviction of Amanda Knox

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Okay, guys, it's time for this week's mantra. I listen to understand not just a reply. Now, let me start up by saying that point Blank, this is something we all do. I'm not even going to question it. We are all guilty of just trying to get a word in, counting down the seconds until someone is done so that we can make our point, or walking away from a conversation and realizing, perhaps with a slight undertone of guilt, that we can't actually remember what someone else's point was, what they were really trying to say, whether they even finished their story. Because sometimes we just

end up being two in our own thoughts, two in our own insecurities, two in our own voice. I'm not going to feign innocence. I want to start this episode very directly and specifically by acknowledging that this is a problem for me and I'm sure it is a problem for others. I also think this goes deeper. Sometimes we do just want to get a word in. We do like the sound of our own voice. Sometimes there's a second layer of defensiveness where this can get more serious when we're not truly listening to someone's intention, even if we are listening to their words. This This mantra, I think, has two stories for me. The first story of the building is the kind of not listening that comes with not paying attention

to their words. The second story is the kind of not listening that comes with not paying attention to their meaning. And that's the more serious or major part of this, where there can be severe communication breakdowns. The question we really need to ask, and it's a question we ask in almost every episode, is why do we do this? Why is this a problem for us? One reason we do this is because of the way our brains process conversation. Neurologically, listening and speaking compete for the same

cognitive bandwidth. As someone else talks, our prefrontal cortex is already kind of busy predicting where the sentence will go and forming responses and aligning the conversation with our own experiences and perspectives. This is partly for efficiency. Our brains are wired for patent recognition and prediction. We can't always immediately help that, I know, but it comes at the cost of presence. We aren't with someone where they are in this moment, in this conversation. We aren't really giving them our compassionate and emotional attention. Instead of inhabiting the situation in this moment with the other person and being face-to-face really in tune with one another, somehow we're just mentally rehearsing our turn. This anticipatory thinking, I think, is amplified

in very fast-paced or emotionally charged exchanges where the urge to like just express ourselves quickly overrides the slower, more deliberate act of receiving another person's words in full and just letting ourselves digest them. For example, instead of inhabiting this moment with the other person, being face-to-face really in tune with one another, we're mentally rehearsing our turn. This anticipatory thinking is often amplified and really fast-paced, or emotionally charged exchanges. Like when we're arguing, when we feel misunderstood, when there's a disagreement, when we feel

triggered, this is when this is more likely to happen, of course. The irony is these are the moments we actually want to be most attentive and we want to be most open and in tune with the person we're talking to, but this initial and often very defensive reaction stops that from happening, meaning we walk away and often we don't feel a sense of closure or of knowing the other person more from this hard conversation, we actually know them less and we feel confused. I'm going to hold off on talking about more of those consequences for a second, but I promise we're going to come back around to it. So just a bit further to my point as to why we do this, because we can't move forward

without understanding this baseline. On a psychological level, self-focused in conversation is often as well driven by a deep need to assert our identity and feel understood. our contributions are not just information. When we talk, when we want someone's attention, these are bids for recognition, they're bids for belonging, maybe even for status. We talked recently about bids for attention in relationships and how it's something that sustains a relationship when we respond to them. Well, repeating yourself over and over or really wanting to be heard, that is in fact a bid for attention, just in a different cloak. It's a bid for someone else to say, I see you, I know you, I hear.

you. There's also an emotional safety mechanism at play here. Truly listening and not just to the words, but to the meaning beneath these words, it does require vulnerability. You have to be able to have empathy and see things from someone else's perspective. And so that level of emotional depth between you and another person, it does open you up to being influenced, to being challenged, or even being changed by something that you hear. You know, if someone's truth contradicts our worldview or touches a tender spot or ask more of us than we are ready to give. It is easier to retreat into selective hearing or mental rehearsals rather than full-blown acknowledgement. That there is the work of none other than our ego. And our ego, we know her job is to protect

us. Her job is to make us feel good about ourselves. And who can blame her really? That's her job. She's doing it very, very well by filtering out everything that doesn't align without pre-existing beliefs or needs as a way to avoid discomfort, as a way to avoid our sense of self being brought into question. But although she's doing her job and she's doing it well, it's coming at the expense of connection. This is where the stakes become high. The cost of avoiding true listening is not just missed details. It's not just a bad reputation. It's missed opportunities for real genuine intimacy and empathy and mutual growth. And that's the stuff that really drives us humans. I think also sometimes in our current culture, we feel like if we aren't the loudest,

perhaps maybe will become irrelevant. That's maybe another part of this, if you know what I mean. Basically in a world where attention is currency. You know, we see it with social media, we see it with billboards, we see it with advertisements. We often equate volume in a conversation with value and assume that the person who speaks the most or the fastest or the loudest will be the one who is remembered and that's something that we really care about. The result is a subtle defensiveness. We fear that if we don't jump in, if we aren't center stage, if our point is forgotten, we will also be forgotten. Over time, this instinct to kind of be at the center and to not be left out can kind of harden into a conversational reflex. I've seen people do

this. I've seen myself do this where it feels like this is like tug of war between people in a conversation about who can be in front of the mic at all times. So those are some of the reasons we do it. It's really important to understand that because, as I said before, we all do it. Let's now talk about the consequences. One consequence of this is that we unintentionally distort the meaning of what's being said in a way that it can actually hurt us more. When we listen through the filter of our own assumptions or our expectations,

we often misinterpret someone's intent or we overlook the nuances in their words. And so we actually end up being offended, hurt, dismissed, even when we, dare I say it, have no reason to be. This can lead to unnecessary tension or conflict or frustration because we're reacting to a version of their message that actually exists only in our mind. Over time, you know, these small misunderstandings, they accumulate. They create a gap between what people feel they've expressed and what we've actually received. And those two things are not the same. Resentment is basically a core thing here. Resentment is very likely to kind of grow through the cracks here for both people.

Another consequence is that I think conversations can become quite surface level. We're not actually exploring what someone else thinks. It's just like this tennis match. It's just like this back and forth that's only focused on our own words. When we prioritize getting our own words, thoughts, and opinions in, the dialogue starts to resemble, I think, two monologues running in parallel. rather than what should be a shared narrative. And that kind of rubs us of the richness that could and does come from collaborative chats.

Like, you know those moments where you're in the car with someone and you're like so in sync and it feels like electricity between you two? Who doesn't want that? Those are the best kind of conversations. Those are like the foundations for great friendships and great people in your life. Without that depth, a relationship can't be and relationships become stagnant and they just become like kind of functional and they never move into the territory of true emotional intimacy or they never stay there. They never move into a place where like a soul recognizes another soul. And that's so

important. Finally, the most dangerous consequence of all of this is that this habit can subtly erode trust. When people sense they're not truly being heard and we know when we're not truly being heard, you know, you feel less inclined to share openly in the future. Even if you care deeply about the relationship, you know, someone else's lack of presence sends a very strong unspoken message. I don't really care. My voice matters more than yours right now. I don't want to know your opinion. Trust, you know, once it's chipped away like that in these small moments, it's really hard to rebuild and it's really hard to prove to someone that you're not just listening to then therefore make yourself heard. Not to be all doom and gloom. Let's talk about the alternative

live here. What happens when we lock in, when we listen to understand, and we downgrade our own reply so that it's not as meaningful to us as what someone else is saying? Well, I'll tell you, I'll tell you what happens. When we give someone our full attention without thinking ahead, the dynamic of the conversation is going to shift almost immediately. The other person is going to feel that tangible difference and they are going to sense that there is space there now for them to express themselves and there is safety within this conversation for them to be vulnerable. that can be really, really freeing. It's so freeing for both people. It's like the rules of engagement have been dropped. The rules of warfare kind of conversation of warfare have been dropped. It's just

two people being able to just do this nice dance and move and interact the way they want to without feeling like you just have to get a word in. They just have to get a word in. There's a competition at play. I think in this state of definitely undivided attention. I love undivided attention, as do we all. We love to receive it. Conversations stop being transactional. They start being quite experiential. You know, we're not just trying to extract what we want from the conversation. We're listening. We're listening. And that kind of presence just invites us to really know someone better. I think if we valued comprehension over winning an argument or proving a point, our conversations, they would actually become a lot less about dominance and more about

curiosity and discovery. So instead of kind of entering with a mental scoreboard and keeping a tally of who's right and who spoke last, we would just enter with curiosity and a genuine like willingness, a humility to set our ego aside, to expand, to understand the truth that is often very laid and complex within someone else's mind. And in this space, I think, disagreement stop feeling like battles, like I've been saying. This is an opportunity to learn. This is an opportunity to bond. Ultimately, there is a culture there of mutual respect. Even when a consensus isn't reached, even when maybe you just don't fully understand, you want to understand, someone else recognizes that, there is like a deep bond and intimacy in that moment

that I think we could all do with a little bit more of. So now that we know how fabulous of an outcome it would be to fully engage with someone else's mind through conversation, the real question remains, which is how do we get out of this defensive bad habit? What do we need to notice? Do, maybe feel, think, see, to be able to truly listen. Well, I might just have some answers for you, as well as some stories about how this has shown up in my own life. After this, your break. Welcome back. Now that we've looked at the meaning behind today's mantra, I listen to understand, not just to reply. It's time to get personal with you guys. It's time to go deeper to share some

of my own insights and reflections about this phrase. The reason I personally do this, not to excuse it, but to explain it, is because I spend a lot of time alone. So when I'm finally around people. I often feel like I dominate the conversation and it's something I'm kind of insecure about. It's hard not to be aware of it now that I know that I do it. The first time I really realized it was like at a dinner party maybe like a couple of years ago where right after I'd started working for myself where I like kind of clocked like, ooh, I just kind of did a lot of the talking here. I've also had to admit to myself recently that I'm quite a defensive person. I think the internet has made me this way. There's something about being like someone who has a

a career that is somewhat visible and online, in that you are always going to find someone who doesn't like you. There is always going to be someone out there who thinks you're doing a crap job, who doesn't agree with you, who doesn't think, whatever, who just doesn't like you. As someone who never, like, kind of expected to have any form of like public scrutiny, even as mine or as mine is, I really struggle with it. I am like immediately on the defensive. anytime someone disagrees with me, even for reasons I probably deeply agree with and that I probably would see as fair, I'm like immediately preparing a response without actually really acknowledging what they're saying. I'm immediately angry. I'm immediately like, how dare you, you know, come to my

page and like criticize me? For example, there was a comment on a post I did recently about trinket collecting. And it was just someone being like, well, this is wrong and you obviously don't appreciate this and that. And you know what? The post wasn't even that deep. Maybe I didn't fully appreciate this and that and whatever it was that she was saying. But I was like so mad. I was so mad that I didn't even like think to respect the point she was making and think to respect how that could help me improve or see other people's perspectives in the future. I just kind of shut down. I also end up hurting my own feelings. Sometimes when you are in this defensive mode like I'm saying I am in these moments, you just expect the worst in people. And that's not a very

good feeling. It's not how we were meant to be. And because I expect the worst in people, even things are like truly just normal and casual, I hurt my own feelings by reading into them when I shouldn't. This has cost me a lot of peace. It's meant I've gotten really invested in things that I shouldn't have. Again, I want to say this point, I don't learn from someone else's perspective. And that's what this is really an opportunity for. Disagreement is an opportunity to learn, even if it doesn't end with you agreeing, at least you see a new way of seeing things. And that kind of expansion for our mind is so valuable. You know, this also bleeds into my relationship sometimes in a way that I don't really want to get into and I don't think we have time for. But if we know we do this,

myself included in a couple of situations, and we know it's bad and we know the emotional and the relational cost. How do we begin to do something about it and notice when we are shifting into this listening, not to understand, but to respond mind frame. One way to really just notice that you're doing this is just to tune into like some of the physical and mental cues that you have just stopped listening. Can you remember what they last said? What is your body doing? Is there like the clench of the jaw? Is you're like the restless tapping of the feet? Is there like an irresistible urge in your throat to interrupt. These physiological changes are often tied to the sympathetic nervous system, basically your fight or flight response. Even in a calm setting,

our body can interpret, you know, a challenging idea or a disagreement or an emotionally charged comment as a form of social threat and it primes us to defend rather than receive. Those are the physical signs. You know, our breathing grows shallow, our posture more rigid. There's all these micro signals that our focus is not truly on understanding. Mentally, there are science as well. We might realize we're no longer processing the other person's words in real time, but instead looping back to something they said earlier. You might find that you're searching for the perfect counterpoint to something they previously said and everything they've just said to you has gone over your head. You can't even remember it. You may find yourself mentally drafting a story even

after you've left. And this is again where the confirmation bias can creep in, the tendency that we have as humans to filter and interpret new information in a way that matches our prior existing belief system. We don't want to only listen to the parts of what someone else is telling us that are going to make up upset and that we think are invalid versus the things that are valid. Another indicator is a change to the quality of our questions and our responses. When we're truly listening, our follow-up questions are often, they're open-ended and they're curious and they are shaped by what the person has just shared. They're also not hard to come up with. But when our focus shifts to defending ourselves or making our own point, our questions tend to close

down the conversation or redirect it towards us, or maybe like just simply not exists. We're not asking a question at all. This kind of subtle pivot from curiosity to rebuttal or just a lack of plain interest is a sign that the bridge of understanding is beginning to wobble. A final way to catch ourselves, it's just by reflecting immediately after a conversation. Could we summarize the essence of what the other person was trying to say beyond just their words? You know, if all we can recall are the parts of someone's story that relate to our point of view or us, we are listening selectively. We are not listening with curiosity.

This kind of practice of post-conversation reflection, I think, is something that builds self-awareness over time. It might not help you right then, right now, and it might not help you next time. But there are conversations down the line that matter just as much compared to the one you're having right now. And it becomes easier to spot when our ego has taken the driver's seat and just pull them out and put our conscious self back in there. We don't want to shame ourselves. We don't want to make ourselves feel like this is who will always be. and that we're just selfish and we just can't listen. No, no, no.

This is an opportunity to reconnect with someone else, but also just to have a sit and think and reconnect with ourselves and what it is that we're trying to get across, what it is that we're trying to prove by not just listening. I think when we pay attention to the moments we interrupt or steer a conversation, we uncover, like I just said, a great deal about ourselves and our inner workings. those impulses, the impulse to interrupt, to come in, to take over, whatever it is. It often reveals what we're protecting or defending or just desperately trying to assert,

whether it is a need to be seen as knowledgeable, whether it is a fear of being misunderstood, whether it is our anxiety over our perspective not being valued. These are all things we're really protective over. I want you to really try and trace back these interruptions to their emotional roots, and then we can begin to see the patterns behind why they drive them. For me, I know that this is a habit that was formed in childhood, like I explained before, but also it was a habit that was created by the fact that I felt kind of rejected and I didn't always feel listened to.

And so now, as an adult, I want to be the one to say things because that feels validating to me. That is something that you need to work on identifying or the pattern will continue. So we've got all this knowledge, how do we start to break the pattern? We understand why we do it, we understand when we do it, what next? Some of these tips may seem a little bit disingenuous, but they're not forever. We're just going to use them whilst we're working towards making these patterns and habits more permanent in a way that we don't have to call on them as deliberately and consciously.

Creating space in a conversation really begins with consciously shifting into what we call a listener's mindset, where your primary goal is understanding rather than speaking, and when you're having an argument with someone, when you know you are prone to disagreement, you say to yourself, I am a listener here, this is my role. That turns a switch and means that we are being genuinely curious. We've given our brain a job, and we're better able to stick with that intention. Also, allow for silence. When you feel a silence bubble to the surface and come up, don't pop it. You don't need to pop it. Just let it exist. Let the other person maybe be the first person to break it. In fact, research on communication shows that even a few seconds of extra pause,

even just a few seconds of silence, can encourage deeper disclosure because the speaker doesn't feel cut off. They feel like there's space for them to add on. Another way to really create space is just to not shut yourself off physically and to just keep your body open the way you're keeping your mind open. Lean forward. Give small verbal acknowledgements like I see. Maintain soft eye contact. Don't turn away from the person. Don't walk away from the person. Don't completely give them the silent treatment. Remember, you're here to be a listener. Signal attentiveness. And they will respond and it will reduce both of your anxieties, both of your fears of frustration, and encourage you to just be more vulnerable.

Equally important is just managing the cognitive impatience that comes with waiting for your turn. Our working memory could only hold so much and when it's crowded with our pre-planned responses, we actually lose our capacity to process what's being said in real time. So one technique to counter this is mindful listening where you anchor your focus on key words or themes. I want you to really notice what words they are saying. As they say them, follow them as if they're in a script, follow them as if they are written down, so that you are really focused and attentive and paying attention to what they're trying to say to you.

Finally, creating space sometimes means just explicitly giving permission for the other person to lead the conversation. You know, you might say, I want to hear everything you have to say. Please just take your time, or I'll share my thoughts after you finish, but I want to make sure I get your full perspective. This verbal commitment, and it is a deliberate verbal commitment, leverages the psychology of social contracts. Once you declare your intent to listen, you're more likely to follow through, and they're more likely to trust you with their unfiltered thoughts or correct you when you don't do it. Over time, that creates a really nice, neutral rhythm in the conversation where everybody is free to speak without feeling like they're going to be

overshadowed. I know this can be quite hard, but you will find that some of the most persuasive, likable, kind people are the ones who do these very things quite naturally, and it's something that you can learn to do as well. Now that we've unpacked what it really means to listen with the intention to understand, let's take it a step further and maybe put this all into practice in our own lives and more. Stay with us. With Amex Platinum, access to exclusive Amex pre-sale tickets can score you a spot trackside. So being a fan for life turns into the trip of a lifetime. That's the powerful backing of Amex.

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Hi, I'm Jessica St. Clair, and I'm June Diane Raphael, and we are two friends trying to to survive the chaos and celebrate the joy that life throws our way. And we do it every week on our podcast, The Deep Dive. Sometimes we dig into the deep stuff, like how I communicate with my dead best friend. And sometimes we give bad advice based off a TikTok I saw. And we're not going to apologize for that. Absolutely not. You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll hire a psychic medium.

Join us, won't you? Listen to the Deep Dive wherever you get your podcast from Lemonada Media. Welcome back. As a reminder, this week's mantra is I listen to understand, not just to reply. Let's start with our deep thought of the day. This deep thought is actually an idiom. I don't know where this came from, but I feel like I've heard this since I was a kid. And it goes, we have two ears and one tongue so that we could listen more than we could talk.

This quote, I think, really speaks to the embank. balance, the very obvious imbalance, that often exist between our capacity to receive and our tendency to express. Biologically, you know, having two ears and one tongue is a simple fact of anatomy, but metaphorically, it's a reminder that listening is meant to be our dominant mode of communication. Listening is how we gather information. It's how we understand our environment, we understand others, how we expand our perspective beyond the limits of our own experiences. talking. Yes, it's really important for self-expression. It is inherently self-focused. And we are not individuals who are meant to exist just with our own thoughts and just with our own words. That is the

beauty of listening. You get to bring in someone else's perspective into your own and integrate it. You get to understand them more from their own mouth. With that in mind, I'd like to guide you through our weekly journal prompts just to help you explore this mantra a little bit deeper and what it's bringing up for you today. As always, if you don't have your journal, that's okay if it's not your thing. Also okay. Just feel free to think about your answers or even pause the episode and contemplate them as I read them out. Firstly, when was the last time you asked a question purely to learn more without any intention of offering your opinion or bringing back the chance for you to speak? Next, when someone is speaking, how do you notice the difference between being

present and mentally preparing your response. And finally, when have you realized that you misunderstood someone, perhaps because you were focused more on your reply instead of their words? What could you do differently? Now that you've made that time to reflect, let's just give your mind a second to kind of rest, maybe think a little bit deeper about these. In just a moment, you'll hear some music and I just encourage you to take this opportunity to process this week's reflections in whatever way feels right to you. No pressure, no expectations. And if it doesn't connect with you, that's totally okay. Just skip ahead about 30 seconds and we'll be right back. But as you settle in, keep our mantra in mind. I listen to understand, not just to reply. As the music plays,

let this mantra shape your thoughts and take the time to connect with whatever it is bringing up for you. Beautiful. Now that you've had a moment to reset and hopefully ground yourself. It's time to take all that energy and put it into action. And we're going to do that with this week's challenge. Again, I'd love to hear your thoughts or how you're going. You can reach out to me at Mantra Open Mind and each month I'll respond to your questions, dilemmas, comments about these challenges and so much more. Those are available in our bonus episodes, which are available exclusively on Open Mind Plus. Okay, this week, your challenge is to intentionally pause. In every conversation, at least once,

Pause for the full two seconds after the other person finishes speaking and before you respond to see if you can go deeper, to see kind of what comes up. Literally, count the seconds in your head. One, two, even take a breath if you have to. Use that time just to process their words and to see if they have anything else they want to add before immediately jumping in. Let me know how you go. I'd love to see if you take this challenge on board and if it does change anything for

you. As we wrap up this week's episode, I want to share a few final thoughts about this mantra. I listen to understand, not just to reply. When we take this mindset and we take this mind frame towards our conversations, we realize how much we've actually been missing and how much has been sitting below the surface that perhaps our ego had us ignoring. There is so much depth and so much understanding that will come from being able to just be present with someone in a way that doesn't demand that you are the center of attention or that your opinion is the only one to be heard. I know we all do it, but the other side of this is that your relationships become deeper, your friendships become deeper, you laugh more, you know more, you bond more, all of that

is just absolutely wonderful and part of what makes being human so wonderful and beautiful and And magical, I guess, is the beautiful word for it. So this week and beyond, choose to listen, not just for your turn to speak, but for the chance and the gift to truly hear what other people have to say. Thank you for joining Mantra, an exclusive Open Mind original powered by Pave Studios. At Open Mind, we value your support. So share your thoughts on social media. And remember to rate, review and follow Mantra to help others discover the show.

For ad-free listening and early access to mantra with me, Gemma Spegg, we invite you to subscribe to Open Mind Plus on Apple Podcasts. I'll share another insightful and introspective mantra with you next Monday. Until then, keep showing up for yourself and your journey. I'm Gemma Speg. See you next week. Mantra is hosted by me, Gemma Speg. It is an Open Mind original powered by Pay Studios. This episode was brought to life by The Incredible Mantra. team, Max Cutler, Ron Shapiro, Stacey Warren Kerr, Sarah Camp and Paul Lieberskin.

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