Listening is a significant part of being able to be in
relationship with one another. I could wax poetic all day about how it’s
integral for empathy, wisdom, deepening bonds, and communication, but that’s
not the point of this post. Indeed, you would be hard pressed to find someone
who doesn’t think that listening is important,
so I’m not going to pontificate about its significance.
And yet. Despite the fact that the vast majority of people
would agree that listening is important, another significant number of people
also complain constantly that humans suck at it. Now, I WILL assert that
communication and human relationships are complex, so it is certainly true that
listening will always demand intense effort, and it will never be a perfect
dynamic between individuals.
That being said- I actually have to vehemently agree with the throngs of individuals that complain that people are generally poor listeners. Anecdotally- as well as probably research somewhere- supports the notion that we are not very effective and supportive listeners. I’ve witnessed just how damaging it is when people come to me and tell stories of how they are deeply
hurting from having family and friends not listen to them. It engenders intense
feelings of loneliness when others do not listen to us, and it also feels as
though our worth as a human being is invalidated. It’s an incredibly painful
experience.
Moreover, as I’m also a human being with thoughts and
feelings, I’ll admit that I also have a pony in this race. I want people to be
better listeners, and part of it is for my own needs desires. Now, in particular,
I’m really, really tired of people telling me that I don’t talk about myself
enough. What the what?! How does that connect to the topic at hand?!
Yes, you read that sentence correctly, and yes, it’s pertinent to the
subject of listening. You see, I am one of those rare human individuals that
does not talk about herself or her life very often, and if I do, it’s not often
a prolonged monologue. Do you want to know WHY I don’t talk about myself much? Well,
there are several reasons, and one of them is because I know what good
listening looks like, and most people are really.bad.listeners. Hear me
clearly- most people are wonderful individuals with noble intentions, but they are still
really.bad.listeners because that’s just how incredibly pervasive this endemic of poor listening is within our
culture. (I could also go on a diatribe about why so many people are poor
listeners- and I actually think most of it is because we aren’t taught how to
do it or encouraged to practice it- but that’s also not the point of this
post.) And so I’m personally not
going to spend my energy talking about my precious thoughts and feelings to
someone if they do not know how to listen and engage them. I do
share some detailed stories, thoughts, and feelings with some people, but only
if they are a diamond in the rough and I know that I am actually being heard.
And so, I really, really want to write this post with some
basic guidelines and tips about listening to one another. I just want to set
out a few practical guidelines for people because I KNOW that people have good
intentions, but I want them to know that if they want to be good listeners in
their relationships, they have to practice and be intentional about growing this skill.
Now, of course I have to have a couple of disclaimers before
I launch into “Listening 103: An Anne Alesch Primer.”
A)
First of all, I am not perfect. I know that
everyone needs to work on their listening skills, including myself. That being said- I DO think that I have a
pretty strong leg to stand on when it comes to dispensing these guidelines, and
I will admit that I do think that I am an excellent listener. First of all, I
have a natural gift for listening. I am endlessly curious about other people’s
experiences, perspectives, thoughts, and feelings, and this alone makes me a
great listener because I genuinely care about what other people have to say,
and I’m less concerned with hearing myself talk. Second, I am professionally
trained in listening, and I do it for a full-time career. I’ve taken academic
courses on the subject, I’ve been in guided practicums and internships, and
now, I am paid to listen to other people for a living. So, yes, I have
credentials beyond simply being a human being with this particular subject.
B)
…And now, before I get accused of being too
bragadoucious, I want to say that while I am gifted in this particular area, I
also am aware of many areas where I am abysmally horrible. For example, several wonderful people have tried to teach me how to crochet, and my poor little
brain literally cannot pick up on this seemingly basic skill. So, while I am going to claim
that I am gifted in the area of listening, there are many other areas in which
I completely suck. Moreover, I also know that this means that not everyone is
going to be an expert listener because some people are simply going to have
more of an aptitude for it than others. I
don’t expect everyone to be a professional listener; however, I do think that
these guidelines are helpful for every day human beings conversing and relating
to one another.
Listening 103: An Anne Alesch Primer
1)
Do not
talk insert yourself into someone else’s experience and talk about yourself
unless you honestly believe it is for
the benefit of the other person.
I get it- we get excited when we hear about
someone else’s experience and we realize that it connects to our own. And
because we are excited about the connection we discovered, we want to talk
about it! For example, if someone talks about a vacation that they are planning to
the Bahamas, then you might feel excited because it reminds you of the vacation
that you took to the Bahamas! And oh my
gosh- wasn’t that vacation so wonderful and amazing, and HOW COOL IS IT that
now your friend is going there?! You need to tell them about this amazing
connection and about YOUR OWN vacation to the Bahamas! You want to talk about
yourself!!!
No, actually, you DO NOT usually
need to automatically bring your own experience into the conversation. Your
friend is talking about HER vacation to the Bahamas. Let her talk about HER
plans, HER excitement, and HER details. No really- please just be quiet for
awhile!!! Maybe when the two of you are finished talking about HER trip to the
Bahamas, THEN you can talk about your previous trip. Or maybe, you can bring up
your trip to the Bahamas, but only if it is helpful to your friend. Perhaps she
is concerned about how to rent a car, and you know a great car rental place,
and so you suggest that you could connect her if she needs it. But only bring these
up if your experience can highlight
or emphasize your friend’s
experience. Do NOT bring it up if you want to talk about your own trip and what
it meant to you without letting your friend finish.
Seriously. Let the other person
talk for awhile. You do NOT need to bring it back to yourself! Really LISTEN to
the other person and HEAR their world and experience. Listen to what your
friend is going to do on her vacation to the Bahamas, listen to what feelings
she has, listen to how this relates to the rest of her life. When you bring up
your own experience with your vacation to the Bahamas, it shifts the focus of
the conversation away from the other person, and it dampens the connection
between the two of you. Instead of your friend being able to share her thoughts
and feelings with you, your need to talk about yourself shuts down that
connection, and it invalidates her own experience of her upcoming vacation.
This guideline is true for every
day conversational topics such as vacations, but if you think about it in terms
of more intense topics, its significance grows even more. For example, imagine
that someone that is talking about the pain of having just lost his mom to
cancer. Can you imagine how hurtful it would be to be sharing about such a
vulnerable topic and to have someone else take that away from you because s/he
could not listen long enough? Because he or she could not wait to talk about his or her own experience of loss? It would be so hurt to feel invalidated and to
not have the space to talk about your own pain and the memory of your unique
mother.
2) For the love of God, do NOT try to fix the
other person’s problem. Seriously. Sweet Jeezus. DO NOT FIX!
Men get a bad rap about this one, but women
definitely do it too. For the love of everything holy, stop trying to fix
someone’s problem when they are talking with you. Many people know that they
aren’t supposed to try and fix other people’s problems, but they still try and do it anyways.
I’ll give a real-life example for
this one. Dissident Daughter Amy was searching for a new job during 2016-2017.
And as anyone who has searched for a job knows...it’s a really frustrating
experience. Amy would talk to family and friends about the difficulty of her
experience as a means of sharing and connecting, and people would often try to “fix”
the problem for her. They would suggest recruiting websites…they would suggest
professional organizations…they would tell her to revise her resume….etc.
Now, don’t get me wrong- it’s not
that those suggestions didn’t have validity. The problem, however, is that we
often don’t want (or even really need!) people’s suggestions. Dissident
Daughter Amy is incredibly intelligent and well connected- she was already
doing a LOT of different things to find the right job. What she really wanted and needed was for someone
to hear and share her frustration about how dehumanizing the whole process was.
That it was frustrating, that it was scary, that it was challenging, that it
was uncertain, etc. What she wanted was to be heard, validated, and to know
that the people she had in her life cared about what was happening.
Now, maybe toward the end of the
conversation, suggestions could potentially
be helpful. But when we jump to “fixing” people’s problems right away, we don’t
really hear or listen to them. It again shuts down both the conversation and invalidates
the other person, and it does not allow for a full connection. Moreover, it’s
really not even the point of the conversation the majority of the time. Most
people are fairly capable of researching and thinking about their own
solutions. But what they can’t do on
their own is to have someone share the moment and process with them.
3) Paraphrase and Ask Questions to Invite
Further Conversation
Okay, people. There’s a reason why
it’s called active listening. And that means that you can’t just sit there like
a bump on a log. I’ve seen many people who have mastered the first two steps
that I mentioned (IE not talking about themselves and not fixing the problem).
However, the issue is that they then seem to gravitate toward this “bump on a
log” posture. They sit there, silently, and they just wait for the person to pour
their heart out. And maybe the person does talk for a bit- they say several
sentences. But...then the other person remains sitting there, still saying and
doing nothing. It’s like they are so determined to not be an “overtalker” or a “fixer”
that they have decided that they will say or do nothing at all so that the
person has plenty of space to talk.
Unfortunately, that is also NOT
effective. Don’t get me wrong- it’s an improvement from talking excessively about
one’s self and/or fixing the other person’s problem. But it’s also just a
little…awkward, and it's also not helpful. It’s difficult to talk when the other person is not saying or
doing anything. You see, the thing is that when we talk, we still need cues and feedback from the other person. We need to have some sense that
they are listening to us, and we also need to have some sense of what direction
we should go with our thoughts.
How do you gives cues and feedback?
Well, for starters, you can paraphrase. Recite back in your own words what you
heard the other person say. This has multiple benefits- first, it lets the
other person know that we are listening to them. Second, it allows the other
person to hear their thoughts stated back to them, and this often helps them
reach new insights and realizations when they hear it phrased in a different
way from another person.
Or, here’s another easy tactic. ASK
THE PERSON QUESTIONS!!!! This is a wonderful device to again show that not
only are you listening to the person, but that you genuinely are curious and
want to hear MORE about their experience. It feels a-m-a-z-i-n-g when someone
asks us a question because we feel as though our words are valuable and that
the person wants to learn even more about what we think and feel.
Additionally,
asking questions helps people subtly think in a new direction and explore their options. And again, simple is often best. For example, someone was talking about how they want to stop catering so much to societal expectations with what their life should look like. A simple question might be, "What does that look like for you?" Or, "What brought you to this realization?" These questions help the person better articulate what they mean, and they may also reach new realizations ON THEIR OWN through the process!
4) Validate and Affirm
This one is huge, and it goes a
LOOOOOONG way. Ultimately, many people really just want to know that their
feelings are justified and that they aren’t ‘crazy.’ One of the most effective
ways to support and listen to someone is to simply validate their thoughts,
feelings, and experiences.
Let’s use a fairly common example
for this one. Let’s say your friend, Jennifer, was just broken up with by her
boyfriend, Matt. Now, many of us when we hear this usually go to one of three
places. We may A) Get angry and threaten to beat his ass; B) Immediately insert
our own experience of what it was like when WE were broken up with by our
boyfriend and then we start talking about ourselves; C) We try to “fix”
Jennifer’s problem. We start talking about the new dating apps she can use or how
this means that she can really concentrate on her career now.
None of those are what Jennifer
needs. Jennifer doesn’t need you to hate this person that she loved. If you
hate the person she loved…it basically says that she was stupid for dating him
in the first place. Nor does Jennifer need you to talk about YOUR breakup. For
the love of God, she needs to talk about her breakup as it’s happening in the
here and now! Not to mention- while you have indeed had the experience of being
broken up with, that does NOT mean that your experience is the same as hers!
And finally, Jennifer does not need you to “fix” her problem. She’s in pain
RIGHT NOW, and she’s not in a place where she needs to hear about the future. I get that we try to do this because we want to "cheer the other person up" and we hate seeing them hurting. However, trying to “fix” Jennifer’s pain basically tells her that she is wrong to feel sad and that she shouldn’t
feel that way. It invalidates her feelings and her experience, and it tells
her that if she would only concentrate on dating apps and her career that she
wouldn’t feel as crappy as she does now. It's not meeting the other person where they are right now.
Instead, Jennifer needs you to
validate and affirm her experience. And it’s amazing how simple it is.
Something simple and validating might be, “Oh Jennifer. That really sucks. I
know that you really liked Matt, and it must be so painful to go through this
right now. I imagine you keep wondering what happened and what you are going to do.”
It’s simple, and yet it is SO HARD
for people to do this. We get all convoluted with trying to fix the other
person’s pain that we miss the point. The point is that Jennifer is hurting,
and we just need to validate that it’s understandable that she feels this way.
And when people listen to us and validate our feelings…it’s amazing. We realize
that our experience is authentic and true. We realize that we aren’t crazy. We
realize that someone cares about us.
Now, because this is a blog post and not a book, I’m going
to stop. Obviously, we could add several other suggestions- I didn’t even touch
on the topic of body language! However, I think that these four would be some
of my top suggestions for the average human being. And like I said, I don’t
think that everyone can or needs to be a professional listener. We are all
skilled in various ways, and not everyone has the ability or desire to listen
at a professional level.
However, we ARE all human beings. And if we want to have
fruitful and meaningful relationships with each other- if we want to support
others and have them feel heard and affirmed- then we need to intentionally
learn and practice how to be better listeners.
Now, when you read this post, I imagine that several of you
nodded your head and remembered occasions where someone didn’t listen to you
very well. And I know that it sucked, and you wish that the other person had done better.
But, I also want to
challenge you- can you remember all of the times that you were guilty of not
listening? How can you improve your listening skills?
I don’t know WHAT happened this week, but it was an
incredibly frustrating week in terms of scheduling gatherings with friends and
family. I’m not sure why all of the scheduling chaos all happened within THE
SAME week, but it did. And so I’m taking the ridiculous prevalence as a sign
from the universe that I should blog about it. J
