ABSTRACT
A good metaphor is “voice,” both literal and figurative voice. Literal voice is speaking. But it entails hearing others. Listening to them and caring about the voices of others, their perspectives, insights, opinions, knowledge, needs and desires, reasoning, etcetera. To do that optimally, one needs to do more than listen when they share. It means paying attention to them and hearing them in a deep way. It means respecting their perspectives, even if a person disagrees. Literal voice also means being authentically invitational of the voices of others, particularly of those who are reticent to speak or share their inner lives. This may be because they do not believe that anyone really cares about it or that it feels perilous to open up and chime in. Figurative voice is more about power, not that literal voice itself is not potentially powerful. But power comes in lots of places and ways.
