The Hanged Man: The Art of Suspending in Dialogue

Julianne Kulosa

TS5205 Listening and Dialogue

Week 6 Writing Assignment 2

Nellie Deutsch

June 23, 2015

One of the biggest challenges in dialogue is to listen to another’s viewpoints and

experience without comparing them to our own. We are raised to believe that there are correct

and incorrect viewpoints. These become entwined with our very survival, especially when we

think we actually are our viewpoints and opinions. While some viewpoints do entail our safety

and survival, such as that one should look both ways before crossing the street, most of our

views are simply opinions that become beliefs as we think them over and over again. Because

we tend to forget that we are not our opinions and beliefs, we often listen from a need to defend

our viewpoint and correct or advise others. William Isaacs (1999) points out that we then gather

evidence that backs our views and discount evidence that does not.

Isaacs suggests that what is necessary to overcome this challenge is to “suspend our own

opinion” (1999, p. 134). In Are You Really Listening?, Paul Donoghue and Mary Siegel explain

that this calls for us to first notice our own thoughts, reactions and feelings in the moment, and

then put those on hold. This doesn’t mean, “you deny your feelings or suppress them”

(Donoghue & Siegel, 2005, p. 182). As we listen, we can put them aside rather than react aloud.

Isaacs (1999) describes the act of suspension as, “to change direction, stop, step back, see things

with new eyes” (p. 135), the “art of trying to see people in a different light” and “of finding the

‘order between’ the positions that people take” (p. 151). This includes seeing ourselves in a new

way, as we become aware of our opinions and thoughts and put them on hold. We become the

observer, in a challenging position of holding the energy of our opinions, judgments or criticism,

“neither suppressing this energy nor expressing it” (Isaacs, 1999, p. 140). Isaacs explains that

this can be uncomfortable yet also transformative and because it is filled with creative energy.

The act of suspending is much like the archetypal image of the Hanged Man in the tarot.

Suspended upside down, tied to a living branch of wood by one foot, the Hanged Man looks to

be in a meditative state of awareness. Arthur Edward Waite (, co-creator of the Rider-Waite

tarot deck noted in the Hanged Man card, “(1) that the tree of sacrifice is living wood, with

leaves thereon; (2) that the face expresses deep entrancement, not suffering; (3) that the figure, as

a whole, suggests life in suspension, but life and not death” (1911, para. 1). Waite (1911) felt

that the Hanged Man “expresses the relation, in one of its aspects, between the Divine and the

Universe” (para. 1). The act of suspension in dialogue is an expression of surrender to a greater

truth than our own opinions and a willingness to be in alert present moment awareness, “life and

not death” in that suspension. It may be intense and scary, but what is available in the void we

step into as we suspend, is a deeper connection, flow and understanding of the speaker, the

Divine and ourselves.

Isaacs (1999) explains that one of the best ways to practice the act of suspending is

through asking questions. First, we must understand that most of our questions are actually

opinions we already have answers for. We then ask open-ended questions that we don’t have an

automatic answer for. Isaacs describes this as “mining for questions,” meaning to “look for the

really important, hard questions that keep people up at night and go to the heart of our concerns”

(Isaacs, 1999, p.148). The fear or discomfort we might feel while holding the space of not

having an immediate answer can be thought of as creative tension, as something new and novel

is created in a thought, realization or understanding we have never had before. These questions

also generate the ability to become aware of ourselves and the “origins of thoughts themselves”

(Isaacs, 1999, p.144). Ultimately, we become responsible for all of our experiences, seeing that

we are the ones that think the thoughts and form the opinions, and that the “world participates in

us, and we in the world” (Isaacs, 1999, p. 144).

In my own experience, suspending my viewpoints is a key part of what is called for in

true dialogue. I’ve had the experience with my husband where I ask his opinions on subjects he

is not an expert in and he has responded by getting annoyed or agitated. He explained that this is

because he doesn’t have the answer to the question. It took us a while into our relationship for

me to understand that when I am pondering questions I don’t have answers to nor expect him to,

such as what happens after you die, and want to engage with him, it is important I let him know I

am not expecting him to have a correct answer. I see how this kind of discomfort comes in

many conversations for me, as if I am supposed to have the correct answer. I notice when I feel

“I don’t know”, which I am more and more living into (I experience that the more I learn, the

less I know), I can easily dismiss my own views, feeling insecure that I am “not an expert”

because I don’t feel there is a “correct answer”.

In the past few years, I have gone out of my way to engage in conversations with people

with very different viewpoints than me. There is not only the discomfort of suspending, but also

a feeling of loss, a death of sorts that occurs when I let go of my own rigid beliefs and views.

For example, I would describe myself in the past a new age hippy type, vegetarian, non-violent

activist, animal rights and environmental advocate. In recent years I have been more drawn to

understand others and their views and values. My husband and I are in an off-road drive club. I

was more of hiker while in nature, not a rock-crawler in the Jeep. Many members of our club

seem opposite to me, such as being not interested in spirituality, enjoying hunting, being anti-

Sierra Club and making fun of those who drive a Prius. By suspending my own opinions, I have

come to understand the values that drive those I’ve spoken with, the care they have for animals

and the planet, and the fears and insecurities they live with.

Recently we were out to dinner with a friend in the club, and I noticed how upset I began

to feel by his way of making fun of me. I suspended my opinion that this was hurtful and that he

should treat me differently. As a result, I got present to the love between us, noticed myself

smiling more, and understood that this was his habitual way of connecting with others. With my

husband, suspending my views allows for a freedom to truly understand him, to ask questions

that don’t offend him because they are not backed by my judgments or opinions, and to notice

the limits of my own perceptions as well as that I am not my perceptions.

Isaacs suggests looking for what we are missing, and I’ve found this practice to be

valuable. I have often practiced looking for what is different, opening then to what is new. I

have found that practicing looking for what I am missing is a gateway to deeper understanding of

others and also lightens the grip of my own opinion. I have a habit of wanting to fix or advise

others. Instead, I look to what I am not understanding or seeing a full picture of in what they are

saying. For example, my son is currently struggling with being in the position of holding one job

he enjoys and having available to him two new jobs to choose from that might be even better

than his current job. Rather than giving him my opinion, I have suspended my inclination to

advise and looked to what I am missing in his description and feelings about the situation. I then

can ask more questions, which has me understand him better and also has him be able to find his

own answers.

Isaac’s proposes that listening to others from the stance that our opinions are correct and

must be imposed on others can be corrected by the act of suspending, which is based on the

principle of awareness. When taking a viewpoint or position, Isaacs explains that this polarizes.

We automatically cut ourselves off from seeing a bigger picture, likened to looking through the

lens of a telescope. To get a broader view when listening, we can suspend our own viewpoints

and look for something different, such as by asking questions. We put our attention on

something new, which then expands our own awareness. This kind of awareness lies in direct

experience, one that happens when we suspend our beliefs and opinions and are willing to be in

the discomfort of not knowing the answers in the moment.

References

Donoghue, P. & Siegel, M. (2005). Are you really listening? : Keys to successful communication. Notre Dame, IN: Sorin Books.

Isaacs, W. (1999). Dialogue and the art of thinking together: A pioneering approach to communicating in business and life. New York, NY: Random House, Inc.

Waite, A.E. (1911). XII: The hanged man. In The pictorial key to the tarot. Retrieved from http://www.sacred-texts.com/tarot/pkt/pktar12.htm