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Table of Contents
Brief thoughts about listening
Levels of listening
What we can do to become a more empathic listener
What listening isn't
How we invalidate other people's feelings
Brief thoughts about listening
Listening is a skill, a discipline, one that can be acquired through learning. In life, there would come many situations where there's little to what we can do for the people around us realistically. In a lot of such situations, the best thing we can do as a friend is to be there and to listen. The willingness to listen comes from our own compassion and kindness to grant others this gift of listening, it is a heartfelt gift that enables us to share with them their pain.
The gift of listening is a gift that tells the person, you are important, what you feel and say matters and I would like to make you feel heard and understood.
As human beings, we would be prone to being emotionally affected by what the speaker says or feel. It is not my belief that listening requires one to be without emotions, for a person without much feelings is one whom hardly allows themselves to be human. Listening does however require us to be able to stay calm and not react emotionally even if and when the speaker triggers in us various unexpected or unwanted feelings.
It thus means we would be prone to making mistakes too in learning how to listen as we too are humans. We may sometimes tune out, or judge, or not listen from time to time. It is the forgiving and accepting of ourselves as humans and telling ourselves to try again that we realise that all of us are humans and no human is perfect.
By being able to listen empathically, you allow them to feel a sense of feeling of being understood and acceptance, it brings them joy, understanding, relief, as if a mountain has been just taken off their shoulder. "Finally someone understands!" is what they might feel when they are being empathically listened to
Listening is also then a choice. To chose to want to listen. To chose to give others that gift of listening. I have chosen that path to learn how to. Do you wish to?
"When we honestly ask ourselves
Which person in our lives means the most to us,
we often find that it is those who,
instead of giving too much advice, solutions or cures,
have chosen rather to share our pain
and touch our wounds with a gentle and tender hand.
The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion,
who can stay with us in an hour of grief or bereavement,
who can tolerate not knowing, not curing, not healing,
and face us with the reality of our powerlessness,
that is a friend who cares.
- Henri J. M. Nouwen "Out of Solitude;Three Meditations on the Christian Life"
In my view and from learning through experience, there are 4 levels of listening
To really listen, you have to suspend your own agenda, forget about what you might say next, and concentrate on being a receptive vehicle for the other person. Simply hiding your tongue while the other person speaks isn't the same as listening. - Michael Nichols
what we can do to become a more empathic listener
To be an empathic listener, our focus and attention is on the speaker. One might say your sincerity and presence(your being there physically and emotionally) in trying to understand what his/her inner world means to them is part of what makes them feel accepted and listened to.
Empathic listening is an effort to discover and explore the inner world of the person speaking. It is an effort to find out what he or she is feeling
For those who wish to learn and try but has no idea where to start, these below "basic guidelines" can serve as a simple understanding on how to start learning what it means to listen. For other resources such as books on listening, you can refer to our "resources" section on this site.
The below guides for empathic listening are taken from
http://www.beyondintractability.org/essay/empathic_listening/
Guidelines for Empathic Listening
Madelyn Burley-Allen offers these guidelines for empathic listening:
1. Be attentive. Be interested. Be alert and not distracted. Create a positive atmosphere through nonverbal behavior.
2. Be a sounding board -- allow the speaker to bounce ideas and feelings off you while assuming a nonjudgmental, non-critical manner.
3. Don't ask a lot of questions. They can give the impression you are "grilling" the speaker.
4. Act like a mirror -- reflect back what you think the speaker is saying and feeling.
5. Don't discount the speaker's feelings by using stock phrases like "It's not that bad," or "You'll feel better tomorrow."
6. Don't let the speaker "hook" you. This can happen if you get angry or upset, allow yourself to get involved in an argument, or pass judgment on the other person.
7. Indicate you are listening by
* Providing brief, noncommittal acknowledging responses, e.g., "Uh-huh," "I see."
* Giving nonverbal acknowledgements, e.g., head nodding, facial expressions matching the speaker, open and relaxed body expression, eye contact.
* Invitations to say more, e.g., "Tell me about it," "I'd like to hear about that."
8. Follow good listening "ground rules:"
* Don't interrupt.
* Don't change the subject or move in a new direction.
* Don't rehearse in your own head.
* Don't interrogate.
* Don't teach.
* Don't give advice.
* Do reflect back to the speaker what you understand and how you think the speaker feels.[9]
Listening isn't
- Interrupting
- Sympathizing
- Interrupting
- Judging
- give advice
- changing the subject
- agreeing/disagreeing
- consoling
- criticizing
The below "10 Obstacles to Empathic Listening" was extracted from http://www.nwcompass.org/empathic_listening.html
10 Obstacles to Empathic Listening
1. Give Advice / Fix-it
Reassurance isn't the same as listening. We are too quick in comforting a person and too quick in trying to take away their pain, as if they shouldn't be allowed to feel that way. It is more important to acknowledge how they feel and let them experience fully what they feel."I think you should ... "
"If I were you, I'd ... "
"There's a great book about ... "2. Explain It Away
"I would have called but ... "
"She only said that 'cuz you ... "
"But I didn't mean to ... "3. Correct It
"That's not how it happened ... "
"But you're the one who ... "
"Wait! I never said that!"4. Console
"It wasn't your fault ... "
"You did the best you could ... "
"It could've been a lot worse ... "5. Tell a Story
"That reminds me of the time ... "
"I know how you feel. That happened to me too when I ... "6. Shut Down Feelings
"Cheer up. Don't be so mad."
"Quit feeling sorry for yourself."7. Sympathize / Commiserate
"Oh you poor thing ... "
"How can people do that?"8. Investigate / Interrogate
"When did this happen?"
"How come you did that?"
"Why didn't you call?"9. Evaluate / Educate
"You're just too unrealistic."
"The trouble with them is ... "
"What is this telling you?"
"If you weren't so defensive ... "
10. One-Up
"That's nothing. Listen to this!"
Giving advice or attempting to fix their problems isn't listening.
"Edgar Watson Howe once joked," No man would listen to you talk if he didn't know it was his turn next." Unfortunately that accurately describes the way too many people approach communication - theyre too busy waiting for their turn to really listen to others." - 'Becoming a Person of Influence' byJohn C. Maxwell and Jim Dornan
Too often, we are all too busy with what we want to say next to be truly listening.
"He says, she says, but neither acknowledge what the other one says" - "The Art of Listening by Michael P. Nichols
How we invalidate other people's feelings
The below is a very elaborate and detailed website about Invalidation, it has a lot of phrases on how we actually invalidate others' feelings. A very good read for those who's learning what it means to truly listen
When I ask you to listen to me,
and you start giving advice,
you have not done what I asked.
When I ask you to listen to me,
and you begin to tell me why I shouln't feel that way,
you are trampling on my feelings.
When I ask you to listen to me,
and you feel you have to do something to solve my problems,
you have failed me, strange as that may seem.
Listen! All I asked was that you listen.
Not talk or do -- just hear me.
Advice is cheap;
a quarter will get you both Dear Abby and Billy Graham in the same newspaper.
And I can do for myself;
I'm not helpless.
Maybe discouraged and faltering, but not helpless.
When you do something for me that I can and need to do for myself,
you contribute to my fear and weakness.
But when you accept as a simple fact that I do feel what I feel, no matter how irrational, then I quit trying to convince you and get about the business of understanding what's behind this irrational feeling. And when that's clear, the answers are obvious and I don't need advice.
Irrational feelings make sense when we understand what's behind them.
Perhaps that's why prayer works sometimes for some people -- because God is mute, and He doesn't give advice or try to fix things. He may just listen and let you work it out for yourself.
So, please listen and just hear me -- and, if you want to talk,
wait a minute for your turn; and I will listen to you.
- Anonymous
This page is last updated on: 2nd September 2007
