It’s only when I take the time to actually connect with other people and hear about their lives that I learn so much about my own life — in terms of putting things into perspective but also trying to figure out who I am as a person.
Being a good listener helps connect you with other people
Hello Goodbye Canada host Dale Curd,
Hello Goodbye Canada Fridays, CBC
“Oh, hey! Long time no see! How’s everything going ? Good! We should really go for coffee sometime and catch up ... All right, byyyeee!”
So goes many a casual encounter, perhaps punctuated with a followup Facebook friend request or half-hearted text exchange that goes nowhere.
But superficial niceties are the junk food equivalent of communication, says psychotherapist Dale Curd, host of CBC’s Hello Goodbye Canada. What truly satisfies is meaningful connection — especially when tech-based conversations are now our default.
In each episode of Hello Goodbye Canada, Curd engages random strangers who are waiting for loved ones or seeing them off in airports. It’s an emotionally charged endeavour: As of this season, the show’s third, he’s spoken with about 1,000 people who’ve shared stories of love, loss, family, friendships and grief.
“I think we undervalue the benefit of connecting with other people,” says Curd, who also teaches a course about his style of empathetic listening to nurses in Houston. “We’ve traded quality connection for immediate gratification. I hear it from people on the show and here in Houston when I’m talking to nurses.
“They’re constantly bombarded with texts and emails, but what they crave more than anything else is the opportunity to sit down and have a meaningful conversation with someone.”
The key is to relate to the person you’re talking to, and to hold emotional space for them to express themselves.
“You’re looking for opportunities — in listening to what they share and how they share it — to form bridges with them. It’s a real dialogue of respect back and forth, so nobody tries to steal the space or talk over or talk at someone,” says Curd, noting that a typical conversation in filming for Hello Goodbye Canada can last 45 to 90 minutes and yield up to four potential stories.
“I find that people are willing to have a conversation with me where they open up and I treat them with respect and ask questions that are meaningful and that make them think. I’m not prying or trying to be exploitative. I come at it from a real place of curiosity.”
For this season — which airs new episodes until Feb. 2 and, once the Winter Olympics are over, returns on March 2 — Curd and his camera crew taped more than 300 stories. Thirty-six of them will make it to air.
“I spoke with a young woman waiting for a boyfriend who’s arriving from overseas. In a lot of respects she’s a lot like a normal teenager, but she has been dealing with cancer for most of her teenage life,” says Curd.
“We just had this beautiful conversation about what it was like to be a teenager, to have cancer, to go through all the experiences she’s had and still think about falling in love and being in love and the future. It was a beautiful and frank and mature conversation with somebody who was wise beyond her years.”
He recalls another woman, one from the former Yugoslavia, whose husband was taken away from their home in front of her and her children — a story he calls “haunting.”
“What I know about who I am is so limited if I keep to myself,” Curd says. “It’s only when I take the time to actually connect with other people and hear about their lives that I learn so much about my own life — in terms of putting things into perspective but also trying to figure out who I am as a person.”