This year at my church we have been practicing good listening - listening to God, listening to each other, and listening to our community. One would think this would not be a hard discipline to master, because most of us have been doing it for our entire lives, right? I’m not so sure about that. There appears to a Grand Canyon between hearing and listening, and even simply hearing someone is hard with all of the noise around us these days. We live in a world full of distractions. I would imagine that there has never been a time in history when true listening was more challenging.

I recently read about a conference where, as an exercise, one adult in the group was to speak about anything he or she wanted to for five minutes. The others in the group were to practice good listening - making eye contact, giving non-verbal affirmations, etc., but they were not to interrupt or offer any verbal feedback. What would that be like for you? I know I would be squirming and uncomfortable, with knots in my stomach and sweaty palms. Besides personally not enjoying being the center of attention, most of us have had little experience with others listening to us that intently! Many of the adults ended up in tears, so overcome with the emotional experience of having others listen.

Listening to another person affirms that you value what he has to say and that you respect him. Those are two attributes that people in our culture long to receive - value and respect. So shut your laptop, put down the newspaper, mute the television - and listen. Look at the person who is speaking to you, give appropriate non-verbal feedback, notice their own body language for cues and clues, and don’t interrupt. When the person is done sharing, summarize what you heard her saying. It doesn’t help to repeat her words verbatim, because it isn’t hearing the words that matter, it’s understanding the message. Summarizing the message will give the other person both the affirmation that you were listening and an opportunity to correct any misunderstanding.

Listening is not easy for most of us. It requires patience and practice. But the rewards are innumerable as we build relationships, shut out distractions in order to narrow our focus, and affirm our children, spouses, co-workers, and friends.

Now it’s your turn. “Kristi, what I hear you saying is…”

Posted in Mental Health, Relationships