The Rare Art of Truly Listening
A few times in my life I’ve been given the gift of a conversation with a great listener. Someone who is truly present and listens beyond just words. Somehow communicating so much care and affection wihout saying a word, simply by being truly present and curious.
Deep undvided listening is a rare art, but maybe the problem isn’t that we’ve forgotten how to listen, it’s that we never learned it in the first place.
We have gotten confused as to what listening truly is, mistaking it for the practice of waiting to speak. For most of my life I’ve been very good at listening, to myself that is. In a conversation I’d usually find myself spending more time searching for clever answers or how the topic applied to my own life, instead of actually being present and curious of what the person in front of me was saying.
Are you listening or just waiting to speak?
One of the biggest reasons for misunderstandings and miscommunication is a failure of listening. We hear the other person speaking and immediately filter what is being said through our own opinions and beliefs, immediately losing all ability to understand the other person’s point of view and feelings.
We end up waiting to speak, waiting to hear our own voice instead of nurturing the conversation and showing the other person that we care by being present as they share.
Think back on your life, can you remember a conversation where you felt the other person was truly listening to you? Giving you their undivided attention? The magic of people skilled at listening isn’t that you get the opportunity to listen to your own voice, it’s how their presence makes you feel. When someone is truly listening, open and curiously without just waiting to speak, you can feel it. Without saying a single word they can make you feel valued, like you and what you are saying truly matters. Communicating so much without saying a word, it’s an increasingly rare gift to give.
So how can we become better listeners?
The three levels of listening
A useful analogy for a conversation can be a spotlight. When the other person is sharing what is on their minds they hold the spotlight. When they are done the spotlight changes to you, and you can now share your own thoughts. And so the spotlight jumps back and forth in a normal conversation.
Level 1 listening
Listening at this level is what most people do, the spotlight jumps back and forth, but most of the time both people are simply waiting to hear themselves speak. Everything being said by the other person is filtered through our own opinions and we end up waiting for the other person to stop speaking so we can hear our own opinions.
Level 2 listening
This way of listening is immediately vastly different from level 1. The spotlight now remains on the other person and we are no longer waiting to hear our own voice. We are listening not just at the whole of what the other person is saying, but also to what they truly value in life. You are now listening from a place of deep respect and care. When someone is listening to you at level 2, you feel deeply appreciated and the conversation gets a level of flow it wouldn’t have otherwise. But there is another level, another depth of listening:
Level 3 listening
The spotlight remains completely on the other person but you move beyond just listening to word. You are now listening to the context of what being said. Everything we communicate also carries the context of our life up to this point, with all of our emotions, experiences and thoughts. When you move beyond listening to words and listen to the subtle differences of tonality, mood, tempo, energy and the feelings behind the words, you begin picking up a miniature image of what goes on inside the other person. When we learn to pick up these subtle differences we gain a framwork for consciousness about the other person’s desire and intention for their life. From this the conversation takes on a depth it could never have otherwise.
Learning to listen
Learning to truly listen shares a commonality with learning to walk; it’s hard and takes a while at first, but it’s truly rewarding and you definietely won’t regret taking the time to learn it.
Let your own thoughts fade and bring your attention to the other person. Let the spotlight remain soley on them and go beyond just listening to words. Listen to the emotion, the energy behind, and allow yourself to truly present and feel that energy, doing so is a gift to the both of you.
The next time you’re listening, subtly notice, are you’re truly listening or just waiting to speak?
This article is written based on the curriculum of Erickson Coaching’s The Art & Science of Coaching™ Program
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