Are You Listening/Being Heard?

Perhaps the more important question for you is: Do people listen to you, when you speak?  Are you being heard?

A few days ago, my wife spent the day watching our two granddaughters, three year-old Hope, and her six-month old sister, Rose.  I asked my wife how the day went: “Fine,” she said, “But, Hope is at that age where she talks and talks and talks and expects a response almost after every sentence.  So at one point I finally said to her, ‘Shhh’!”  My wife continued, “And, you know what Hope said to that?  She said, ‘Don’t say, “Shhh!” to me.’”  In other words, my granddaughter told my wife in no uncertain terms, “Don’t shush me!”

It takes concerted effort, mental energy, concentration, and sometimes emotional energy, to really listen to someone.

Many of us feel unheard.  As if no one listens to us.   Funny, but we seem to instinctively know when others are not listening, either unwilling or unable to give us their full attention.  Children certainly do.  They know when they’re being ignored, seen but not heard.

Child or adult, when we’re frustrated or angry, or in turmoil or are deeply pained over something, what we seem to want the most is a “listening ear”—someone that will hear us—without judgment, without trying to fix us, and without uninvited advice.  We don’t want a know-it-all telling us where we went wrong, what we should have done, might have done, or could have done differently.  At such moments, all we want is to be heard.

“Listen to me!”

Someone ever say that to you?

You’re not listening!!  Stop!  Look!  Listen!

We may not always be aware of our own lack of attention at times.

We might assume that we already know what the speaker is going to say.  We interrupt, not letting the person finish his/her thought.  Or our body language reveals signs of distraction and inattentiveness—lack of eye-contact, eyes roaming and/or focusing on other things or people, drawing our attention elsewhere.  Hence, we’re not fully tuned-in, not really listening.  There is too much atmospheric static as it were.  And the speaker senses this.

Listening is an art; and a science, requiring physical stamina, mental willpower, and heartfelt interest in the other.  We may have two ears, but we don’t always seem to know how to use them well.

For one, some people are just hard to listen to because they don’t know how to say what they mean and mean what they say in a nutshell.  They prattle.  They wander all over the place before they ever get to the point, if they get there at all.

Another problem is our environments.  Not all contexts are suited for quality conversational experiences.  Noise level may be high.  Children may be crying or calling for attention.  The phone rings.  The TV is shouting in the background.  The office machines are too loud.  Dogs are barking.  How can one hear, let alone listen, under such circumstances?

Emotions may also be a problem to good listening.  When a person has an emotional outburst, all we may hear is the emotion and take-in nothing of what has actually been said in terms of substance and content.  Here, we may actually be treading on sacred ground, dealing with “personal” stuff.  The challenge here is not to stuff, hide, deny, or suppress one’s emotions, but to deal with them, own them with honestly and integrity.  And to listen with the utmost respect!

These are a few reasons why listening can be such a difficult task.  There are many more.  It is also why we do best if we first assume that we are NOT good listeners and must intentionally learn how to listen well.  We must train ourselves to become good listeners.

Here are some questions to ask yourself to see if you are listening well.

Can you mirror back in your own words, a concise and precise summary of what you just heard?

Did you pause to ask questions for clarity’s sake, along the way in the conversation?

Did you hear the speaker’s content behind the emotion or did you only experience the speaker’s emotion as he/she delivered the content?  That is, did you hear the speaker’s mind as well as the speaker’s passion?

Does what you heard require a thoughtful response from you?  Or does it only need an acknowledgment of having heard it?

If a thoughtful response is required, are you able to give a proper response, right then and there, or do you need to ask for time to think about it before responding?  And are you aware of your own emotions as you begin to formulate a response?

Good communication and good listening is about relationship: to hear and to be heard is to respect each other's personal presence, value, and significance.