Listening is a Movement

Lines of Listening: A Somatic Series on How We Hear, Move, and Understand

Mike O'Connor

5/6/20253 min read

To borrow from philosopher John Shotter, this movement in listening is a kind of withness. Shotter writes that human meaning is not fixed or self-contained. Instead, it is emergent, relational, and alive. “What is of importance to us exists not only in relation to what else is around it and us,” he says, “but also in our sense that there is always a something more beyond it” (Shotter, 2015, p. 232). Listening in withness is listening with the moment — with the shifting context, the body of the other, the air in the room. It is not “aboutness” — not categorizing or summing up — but being present with what is still unfolding.

When we listen this way, we move beyond passive reception. We listen with direction — intendere, from the Latin, meaning to aim, to point, to stretch toward. This is the same root that gave French two different meanings: entendre (to hear or understand) and tendre (to stretch). The etymology itself reminds us that hearing and stretching are linked: to listen is to aim our attention outward, to engage our full selves.

Just like in the tendu, this stretch also brings a fold. But where does the fold occur in listening? In movement, the fold is felt in the body’s joints — the hip, the shoulder, the spine. In listening, the fold might appear as a pause, a reorientation, a moment of insight. It may be the way our thoughts reorganize in real-time, in response to what we are receiving. Listening begins with reaching, but meaning is made in the return — in the fold.

As philosopher Deleuze notes, different materials fold differently (1992, p. 34). So too do different bodies, different contexts, different listeners. There’s no single fold in listening, no singular meaning that snaps into place. Instead, there is a mutual shaping — between speaker and listener, between motion and pause, between line and response. The dancer doesn’t think, “I must fold my hip.” The fold happens because they extend. Listening works the same way: something shifts because something reaches.

We often think of listening as something quiet, passive — a receiving mode. But listening, like dancing, is an action. It has direction. It reaches. It moves. In somatic and relational practices, I’ve come to understand listening not just as a skill, but as a movement — one that stretches outward and folds back in. Like the body, listening doesn’t stand still.

In ballet, there’s a simple movement called a tendu. The dancer extends the foot forward along the floor, stretching from the tip of the toes while keeping contact with the ground. It seems like a straightforward action — outward, linear — but something else happens too. As the leg extends, a fold occurs in the hip socket. The action of reaching outward causes a necessary shift and bend within. This is what I call a co-action: a responsive fold that happens as part of the stretch.

This metaphor speaks to how listening works in the body. When we listen with attention — not just hearing words but reaching toward what’s being said — something inside us shifts in response. The act of listening causes a reorganization, just like the tendu causes the fold in the hip. In this way, listening is not simply about taking in information. It’s an embodied gesture that moves us.

We can think of listening as drawing an imagined line — a line of attention, a line of contact. But that line also creates space. A fold is not just a bend; it’s a container. When we fold inward in listening, we make room to hold what we’ve heard. We digest, we stabilize, we allow new meaning to rest inside us. This, I believe, is the difference between listening to react and listening to receive. The first skips the fold. The second honors it.

So much of our world trains us to listen in straight lines: efficient, logical, quick to arrive. But the body doesn’t move in perfect lines. And neither do relationships. Listening, when practiced as movement, becomes something slower and more responsive. It offers not just comprehension, but presence.

Try listening like a dancer — reaching out, noticing the fold.