Deep Listening - Good Grief by Sara Bareilles
🎧 Deep Listening
🌿 About Event
When was the last time you gave yourself the luxury of dedicated listening to an album from beginning to end? Without multitasking, checking your phone, or doing anything else.
When was the last time you listened closely to the emotions and desires within you?
Deep Listening is an invitation to do both.
We’ll gather to listen to Sara Bareilles’ Good Grief in its entirety, setting aside the rare luxury of allowing music to monopolize our attention and wash over us. As we listen together, we’ll also turn our attention inward: to the feelings, memories, questions, and parts of ourselves that the music might bring to the surface.
Bring a journal and/or sketchbook as a place for whatever arises to take physical form. You can write, draw, doodle, or simply sit and listen. There’s nothing you need to produce, figure out, or share.
Our goal is to simply listen.
To notice what’s within us. To give it somewhere to land. To make space for something inside you that may not otherwise get heard.
And to do that in the presence of other people, but without any expectation to share or be vulnerable. My own experience has shown me the strength that becomes available to us when we turn inward while surrounded by others who are doing the same.
The first part of the gathering is intentionally gentle and private. Afterward, you’ll have the option to stay for a deeper experience of listening, reflection, and sharing in a small group.
You don’t need to come with a particular feeling in mind. You don’t need to consider yourself creative. You don’t need to know what you’re looking for.
Just bring yourself, something to write or draw with, and a curiosity for what you might discover.
🕰 Flow / Schedule
6:30-7pm · Arrive + Settle In We’ll gather in a circle and begin with gentle movement, think of slow stretches that help us slow down, settle into our bodies, and become present to the experience ahead.
7-7:30pm · Deep Listening We’ll listen to the first portion of Good Grief. Use your journal or sketchbook to write, draw, reflect, or simply listen.
7:30-8pm · Optional Sharing A moment to share anything that surfaced with the wider group. Sharing is always optional.
8-8:30pm · Deeper Listening We’ll listen to the second half of Good Grief. Similar to the first half, use your journal or sketchbook to write, draw, reflect, or simply listen.
8:30-9pm · Small Group Sharing + Closing
We’ll split into small groups for facilitated reflection and deeper sharing.
👥 Facilitator
Ran Ji created the community version of Deep Listening after experiencing the practice herself several times. Each time, she was surprised by the variety of the emotions, memories, and feelings that surfaced through simply listening to an album with her full attention.
She views art as a call and response: an artist puts something deeply personal into the world, and it calls to the parts of us that are ready to hear it. Her hope is to create a space where people can respond to that call with curiosity, privacy, and care.
Ran has been a teacher and tutor and has experience facilitating group discussions and helping people open up. More than anything, she brings a deep capacity to sit with people as they are in each moment, without requiring them to explain, perform, or move through their feelings on anyone else's timeline.
To learn more about Ran, visit her Instagram.
💫 Who This Is For
This space is for anyone who feels called to slow down and listen: to music, to themselves, and to what within might be asking for their attention.
You might be moving through grief or transition. You might be carrying something you don't have words for yet. Or you might simply want to spend an evening listening deeply and being in community.
No particular experience with journaling, drawing, meditation, or sharing is expected.
The sharing portions are entirely optional. You can participate as privately as you'd like.
You’re also always welcome to step outside, take a break, or leave if you need to.
🎒 What to Bring
A journal or sketchbook
Something to write or draw with
Yourself, exactly as you are ❤️🩹
🏛 About The Commons
The Commons is a community-based “Fourth Place” in San Francisco — a space for authenticity, full self-expression, aliveness, and meaningful connection.
🚪 Arrival Info
The Commons is located at 550 Laguna St, San Francisco, at the corner of Hayes & Laguna.
Enter via the stairway under the The Commons sign at the basement level.