A Lesson in Listening Part 2: How to Listen Well
If you were able to identify with more than a few of the listening blocks listed in Part 1, congratulations! You are part of the human race. The good news is that contrary to common belief, listening is a skill that can be honed, one that enables us to better show up for our loved ones in meaningful ways. Skills for Effective Counseling lists a few basic tips to take your listening to the next level.
Reflecting Content: This involves simply repeating back the content you have heard from your conversational partner. The key here is to do this without added layers of interpretation or judgment, which can be conveyed through verbal and nonverbal cues such as tone of voice or facial expressions.
Reflecting Feelings: Similar to reflecting content, you are simply repeating back implicit or explicit emotions you heard from your conversational partner. For this, you can use variations of the simple frame, “You feel ____.” Remain humble and open to correction as you try to accurately interpret their emotions.
Validating and Empathizing: This entails acknowledging your conversational partner’s experiences and emotions as valid. If you are having trouble validating because you disagree, try to find at least one aspect of what they shared that you can empathize with and practice a partial validation.
Example: “My boss is so critical of me. She just won’t get off my back, and I don’t feel like I can do anything without her breathing down my neck and pointing out what I’m doing wrong. I’m this close to quitting!”
Potential Response 1 (Reflecting Content): Your boss is always correcting and criticizing you; she doesn’t give you any space. You’re tempted to just walk out the door!
Potential Response 2 (Reflecting Feelings): You feel suffocated and nit-picked!
Potential Response 3 (Validating and Empathizing): It must be incredibly difficult to feel like you can’t do anything right at work. Many people would feel defeated in those circumstances.
Please note: “basic” does not mean “easy”; in fact, you may be surprised how challenging these skills can be. It may be helpful to choose one tool to focus on for a week or two, then another, progressively stacking your skills. Below is an example that stacks all three skills in responding to the example above.
Potential Response 4 (Stacked Skills): Your boss won’t stop criticizing you, and you feel extremely suffocated as a result. That sounds demotivating, and it makes sense to feel defeated.
Attending When We Disagree: The Art of Carefrontation
At this point, an issue may be nagging at the edges of your conscience: aside from listening and attuning, how am I to respond to those who shamelessly pursue bad decisions, decisions that will inevitably harm them in the long run? Am I simply to listen, and that’s all? It turns out that “just” listening can be the most difficult part of all (see “Common Listening Blocks” in Part 1 of this blog). However, there may be a point where we are called to give a more substantive response.
In these instances, Matthew 18:15 offers an answer in part: “If your brother or sister sins, go and point out their fault, just between the two of you. If they listen to you, you have won them over.” Just as God “earns” our listening ear by extending listening and attentiveness to us, we need to earn our loved ones’ listening ears by first attending well to them. No one likes to be advised by someone who doesn’t thoroughly understand their circumstances or extend compassion about their situation.
Over time, we can learn to caringly confront our loved ones’ discrepancies, hopefully “winning them over” due to the rapport we’ve established. One such way to do this is with a technique called carefrontation. Carefrontation involves gently challenging a hypocritical, inconsistent, or unhealthy belief using a variation of the following sentence frame: “Help me to understand. You say, _________, but at the same time, you _____________.” This is most effective when combined with the other reflective and empathizing techniques described above.
Example: “When I was feeling low this weekend, I drank again. It always gets worse at night when I’m alone. I’m so sick of myself–I hate drinking but I do it anyway. When I’m drunk I get even more depressed. Sometimes I wonder what it would be like to just disappear.”
Potential Response (Reflecting Feelings, Validating, and Carefrontation): “The isolation you describe sounds extremely painful. It makes sense that you’d want to escape those feelings of loneliness and sadness–many people would probably act that way under similar circumstances. But help me to understand something: You say that drinking harms you, yet you continue to do it when you’re lonely. What do you think prevents you from making a different choice?”
This kind of response is only one of many potential options. It provides validation and empathy towards pain while placing the onus on the other person to consider the motives behind their actions and perhaps make an alternative decision in the future. One key component to remember about carefrontation is that our control begins and ends there; with the exception of caring for minors, we have no agency over whether or not someone chooses to follow our advice. Accepting our limited power over others protects us from becoming overly-invested in their choices, which will ultimately harm the relationship in the long-run.
Conclusion
You will find that practicing a humble posture of listening will pay large dividends in many of your relationships. When we have become accustomed to a style of communication that prioritizes judging, comparing, or any of the other listening blocks mentioned in Part 1, transitioning to an authentic listening stance can be a challenge, albeit a worthy one. Your ability to fully tune in to others’ stories can become a healing balm, opening up avenues of communication you never imagined possible.