Beyond Hearing: Why Listening Starts in the Belly
- Calmfidence Council
- Nov 14
- 3 min read
Written by Paulina Radgowska, Certified Motivational Strategist and Calmfidence Council Member
Many midlife leaders are encouraged to improve their listening skills through feedback tools, communication models, or conflict resolution workshops. Yet genuine listening does not start with the ears—it begins deeper, in the body, specifically the belly!
Listening isn’t just hearing words or waiting for your turn to speak. It requires quieting the inner noise, tuning into your emotional energy, and sensing what’s really beneath the surface. Without this deeper awareness, your “listening” is just reacting.
In this article, I’ll show you how to upgrade your listening from surface hearing to embodied presence, transforming how you lead and connect.
In my coaching practice, we refer to this as your ‘Inner Radar’. And here’s a challenging truth:
If your emotional energy is overwhelmed by fear, judgment, shame, or overstimulation, your inner radar becomes scrambled.
Rather than listening, you’re reacting.
Emotional intelligence research confirms this. According to studies on Nonviolent Communication (NVC) pioneered by Marshall Rosenberg, up to 90% of communication breakdowns arise from unmet emotional needs rather than poor choice of words.
Yet most of us were never taught to connect our emotions with our motivations. Instead, we defend, project, manage, and micromanage, often unconsciously.
Your Body Is Your Leadership Currency
Your ‘body’ forms the vital link between your physical sensations and emotional awareness. Learning to listen to your physical energy, your actual body, is learning the language of your authentic truth.
The wisdom of yogic traditions holds profound relevance here. Each chakra represents a focal point of conversation within your system.
The Manipura chakra, located at the solar plexus, is known as the ‘city of jewels’, the seat of identity, power, and forward momentum. Listening there transforms leadership from reactive and defensive to magnetic and grounded.
The question “How’s your belly?” is far from a wellness cliché; it is a diagnostic tool rooted in ancestral wisdom.
Leaders who regulate their emotional body—their tone, breath, posture, and gut response can lead without overpowering. They listen without collapsing and respond without suppressing.
This is what I call the Listening Upgrade: not merely hearing others better, but tuning in first to your own signals before they erupt.
The Upgrade Framework: From Numb to Noticing
Drawing from the Motivation Mapping Methodology and principles of Nonviolent Communication, here are practical steps to begin tuning into your emotional energy:
• Pause the Pattern: Before any conversation, pause for 1-2 seconds. Scan your belly, breath, and posture. Ask yourself: What am I holding? What am I avoiding?
• Name the Need Beneath the Noise: Emotions are messengers, not problems. Learn to decode them:
Anger often signals a need for fairness or boundaries.
Anxiety may indicate a need for safety or clarity.
Sadness points to a need for connection or care.
• Make Micro-Adjustments: Leadership does not demand complete overhaul but subtle refinements:
Take three deep breaths before responding.
Lean back slightly to listen more deeply.
Ask, “Would you like me to hear, solve, or witness?”
• Map the Moment: Use visual tools, such as Inner Radar, to chart your bodily sensations, feelings, and inner dialogue. This approach is grounded in neuroscience and self-mastery rather than ‘woo’.
As Daniel Goleman, a leading expert on emotional intelligence, states: “The most emotionally intelligent leaders are not perfect, they are present.”
Listening as a Self-Leadership Skill
When you listen to your own physical energy, your body, you stop outsourcing your emotional labour. You lead without leaking energy or authority.
This transcends communication — it is calm power.
Such leaders:
Respond rather than react.
Remain grounded amid chaos.
Set a tone of emotional safety for their teams.
When listening resides in the belly and breath, not just in the intellect, you become a master for authentic calm, not control. That is the essence of the real upgrade.
So next time you enter a conversation, don’t ask yourself, “What should I say?” Instead, ask, “What is the truth in my body?”
It might be silence. It might be softness. It might even be a firm „No“.
Let your listening begin there.
About the Author
Paulina Radgowska is a certified motivational strategist, RMP® Master Practitioner, and founder of Motivation Map – Coaching & Strategy Studio. She helps high-potential individuals and teams unlock their intrinsic drivers to lead with clarity, resilience, and purpose. As an Calmfidence Council Contributor, she shares grounded tools for motivation and bold self-leadership.
Connect with Paulina
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