When was the last time someone truly heard you?
Not just nodded along while preparing their response. Not offered advice you didn't ask for. Not jumped in with "I know exactly how you feel" before redirecting to their own story.
When someone really heard you. Stayed with you. Made space for what you needed to say.
If you can't remember, you're not alone. In a world addicted to being right, to broadcasting opinions, and to filling every silence, we've lost the art that holds everything together: the ability to listen.
This book is about getting it back.
THE PROBLEM WE DON'T SEE
We think we're good listeners. We make eye contact, we nod at the right moments, we say "I hear you." But underneath, we're composing our next sentence, scanning for solutions, managing the conversation. Our partners feel lonely even when we're in the room. Our children learn to stop sharing. Our colleagues speak but never feel heard.
We've replaced presence with performance. And it's costing us everything.
A DIFFERENT KIND OF GUIDE
Richard Dillon didn't set out to write a book about listening. He set out to understand why his relationships kept hitting the same walls, even when he was trying so hard to be good, to be helpful, to be there.
The answer came through unlikely teachers: A café conversation with a friend who needed silence, not solutions. A son who went quiet mid-meltdown when his father finally stopped trying to fix it. A business customer whose fury transformed the moment someone truly stayed with his pain.
Drawing from 20 years of Aikido practice, training in Nonviolent Communication and counselling, the dissolution of one relationship and the deepening of another, and countless moments of getting it wrong before learning to get it right, Dillon maps a path back to the listening we've forgotten.
