4-15-15 Post: Really Listening and Actually Hearing

Question/Comment: I frequently feel as if the person I am talking to is not hearing me at all. The responses I get seem like a “bounce off” from what I said or don’t really have anything to do with my statement at all.  I have wondered if I do the same thing to others.

Response: What you are talking about is very common!  People often really don’t listen to what others are saying.  They may bounce off the other person’s words with a flow of consciousness response or they may wait for the other person to stop talking and then just say what they want to say whether it is related to the first person’s topic or not.

This reminds me of how children play at various stages of development. At an earlier stage of development children do not play together at all. Later they engage in parallel play but don’t really interact. Later they play together but each still have their own theme.  Yet later they engage in group and team activities, but don’t really function as a team. Even later in development, they are capable of functioning as a team, engaging with team effort and team goals being primary.

Most people get a great deal of pleasure from talking and expressing their ideas and opinions.  We often have a sense of needing to win a conversation. We want to be right, or know more than the other person or know that we are being heard. We often feel a need to dominate the conversation. When we can put this type of behavior aside, and really listen, we can get to know another person on a deeper level and find out what they are really saying.  This does take more effort and energy.

Once we are aware of choice in conversation style, we are free to choose what type of listening we want to use. Do we want to know the other person, understand what they are saying? Do we want to give our attention, time and energy to the other person? Do we want to leave the conversation feeling important? Do we want this other person to go away from our talk feeling heard and valued? Do we want to spend time with this person again in the future? How important is it for this particular person to hear me clearly at this time on this topic? We each have to answer these questions for ourselves each time we engage in a conversation. To some degree, we do instantaneously ask ourselves these questions with each conversation from the briefest, “Hi, how are you?” asked in passing without expecting a true answer and without waiting for an answer to the long in depth conversations we have with a new love interest.

You can now ask yourself, which people you really want to listen to and who you really want to hear you. How important is it to you to feel heard and connected? If it is very important and you do not have anyone who will do this with you, you may have to find some new person or people to talk with. Are you willing to give this type of listening as well?