Listening

If there is one universal desire outside of the obvious physical needs and desires, I think it would be to truly be heard. I am not just talking about being heard audibly. I am talking about being understood. Have you ever wished that someone just understood you? Understood what you were trying to say? Understood where you were coming from? Understood your motivations, your fears, your hopes, your dreams?

Its such a dichotomy to me. We are individual beings. We breathe our own air, we eat our own food, we live within a body that is separate from everyone else. Even when we experience things together, our perceptions are often very different. Yet, we want to be together. We want to know and be known. We want someone else to break through into our world and truly get us.

Researchers tell us that in normal conversations we spend the majority of the time between us talking thinking about what we are going to say next. This doesn't leave much time for us to hear what the other person is saying. Add to that the fact that a large percentage of communication is non-verbal and it is even more likely that we aren't going to pick up on cue that might lead us to a better understanding of what the other person is saying.

The lack of being able to listen well can impact getting directions, making plans with friends or resolution of a conflict. It can also keep us from truly listening to the really important things people are saying. Let's face it...it is really hard to open up and be vulnerable (see last post) in the first place. Not many of us are going to bare our souls easily in the first place. Couple that with a lack of the other person really being able to listen and it is highly likely that even when we try we will walk away thinking that the person doesn't know us any better than they did before.

So how can we make a difference? How can we know other better? How can we listen? Its simple really, almost ridiculously so. All it takes is a desire to listen and a little bit of practice. If you don't care, then you won't ever listen. But assume you do want to know, you do want to hear, you do want to get it...what can you do?

You can listen. I am not trying to be cute. I am sure you (if there are any of "you" out there) are saying "Stupid. I read all of this to get to this stupid end? What an idiot" or something like that. However, I am telling you that the secret it to listen. To really listen. In order to do that you are going to have to change the way you have been going about it most of your life. Remember when I said that we spend the majority of our time when we are not talking thinking about what we are going to say next? We have to break that habit.

Experts in communication call this active listening. It involves training yourself to not think about what you are going to say next and instead focus on what the other person is saying. The words they use, their body language, the inflection of their voice all tell a story. So how do you train yourself to use active listening? Listen as though you have to give a report, and you will..sort of.

When you are having a conversation with someone listen to them and then briefly paraphrase what they said back to them. This will seem awkward at first, but it works. It makes us focus on what is being said, and it allows the other person to: a) know we are listening, and b) correct us if we are getting things wrong. I am not saying that you do this in every conversation after everything someone says...but if you are ready to do it all the time, then you will be engaging in active listening. The more serious the conversation, the more you should use it. Give it a try. I bet you will catch people off guard and you will find that they are excited that you are actually hearing them.