Ten Minutes of Presence

I’ve just finished a ten-minute conversation.

In those ten minutes, nothing was fixed, nothing was analysed, and no advice was given.

It was a simple 12-Step outreach call. Those that know, know what that is. For those that don’t, it was a structured call between two people who may or may not already know each other to connect and share.

One of us speaks first and for 3 minutes they share whatever is there to  be said. The other listens. The person listening did so fully, silently, and on mute. When the speaker finished their three minutes, the listener reflected back what they had heard. Nothing more. No advice or opinions. Simply something like, “Thanks for sharing. You were heard, and this is what I heard…”

Then we swapped.

At the end, it was something like, “Thanks for the outreach. Bye.”

The whole phone call was ten minutes. That was it. Job done.

Nothing changed, but each person was heard. Deeply heard.

What makes this different from a normal conversation is presence.

When the listener is on mute, they cannot jump in. They cannot reassure, clarify, agree, correct, or help. All the familiar urges arise, the urge to say something useful, to soften the edges, to move things along. None of these can be acted on, and none of them are needed by the speaker.

So the listener stays present.

That is all they do. And it is not nothing.

For the speaker, the experience is different too. They know the other person is on mute. They know there will be no interruption, no filling of silence, no gentle steering. That creates safety and allows a clean space to stop, to think, to reflect, to repeat, or to be silent, without any need to rush or check that the other person understands.

Words can arrive in their own time, without fear that the silence will be taken over.

It is not a normal conversation. And that is the point.

The structure creates safety.

In that safety, something honest has room to emerge. It is not being drawn out. It emerges because nothing is getting in the way.

Listening like this can feel deceptively simple. It can even feel like you are not doing very much. But to truly listen, you have to be present.

In all the training I have done, including a Master’s degree in Counselling, this has been one of the most powerful lessons I have learned.

It is not a technique or an intervention.

It is the quiet discipline of staying with what is. Of being present.

It is a gift not only to the speaker, but also to the listener. Being a witness to someone’s experience, without fixing, shaping, or improving it, is a privilege.

It is not something to rush past.

Ten minutes. Two people.

Presence