For the love of listening

“Some people keep silent because they have nothing to say, /while others keep silent because they know when to speak. / Wise men remain silent until the right moment.”

Listening is a powerful remedy to our desire to dominate. When we listen carefully, we let go of our own agenda and focus on others. We are not in a hurry to put together our response to win a point; rather, we try to understand what the other person is trying to say and even give a sense of how they may be feeling. When you are an active listener, you listen carefully before responding with your own opinion or story; careful listeners paraphrase what they sense the other person is feeling and saying. They know that not every verbal encounter needs to be a debate, and not every word said is an invitation for it to be negated or an opinion to be provided. You would be surprised at how much we do this. You may think you are a great listener but are you? Our brains are hard-wired not to think clearly during tough conversations. Which makes it difficult to keep the conversation calm and productive, much less for one person to retain the information the other is trying to relay. It can be the most frustrating thing in a relationship. When you find your communication skills are slipping, or you’re just not getting through to your partner. You should ask yourself, are the two of you even listening to one another? Really listening?

“Most people do not listen with the intent to understand they listen with the intent to reply” -Stephen Covey.

I was recently in a workshop with my partner, and in one of the classes, we were told to take our chairs and face each other with our knees almost touching. We all spread around the room and sat face to face with our partner. We then had a third person who stood next to us to help us if we had difficulty completing the exercise. All we had to do was make a simple statement to our partner. It was not to be about anything of importance or emotional value. Just a statement like “I really don’t think we should take the long way home because I have some things I need to get done today.” Then our partner was to listen to what we said and tell us what they heard. Like, “Ok, so you don’t want to take the long way home because you have a lot to do still today?” It was unbelievable how everyone in the class struggled with the exercise. Most of us had to have the simple statement repeated. Some of us still could not reply with what they had heard, or the other person would add their own words to the statement. We…