Great Listener

How do great listeners enable their conversation companions to understand truly seen, heard, and comprehended?

What makes a great listener so attractive? You know that there is something essential to a solid relationship: safety. Safety is at its essence free of danger, threat or damage. Protection in conversation is right, granting independence from judgment, misrepresentation, or dismissal.

Much as immersing yourself in a novel demands that you put an end to your incredulity, you must stop insulting yourself in hearing. That is not to suggest that large audience members do not disagree, have their views, and give their sister what they did, but they use the "First, not harm" Hippocratic oath for their conversations.

In only a few easy words, fantastic listeners validate. These statements are all short—three or fewer words—but all state that a person's experiences or sensations, which is the very definition of validation, are worthy and acknowledged. The validating sentences do not inherently convey consensus during the conversation, but they convey something much larger: approval.

Good listeners pursue their interest in nature. This is the fun part to hear. Instead of nodding and waiting for their turn, fantastic listeners take on fascinating sneakers using their spiders' senses. You sit up and hear the comments on the radar or drop the breadcrumbs sometimes. So, when your brain begins to bubble with a disinterested comment, ask questions. Asking what, where, where, why, how, just like a journalist. Request examples and facts. Following your natural curiosity by asking questions reveals that you are not only listening and interested but almost always a fascinating story.

Good listeners listen to the whole body. Teachers in kindergarten teach something called "to listen to all of our bodies." That is how it goes: use your eyes to watch the non-verbals, think about your head, and feel emotional feelings in your heart—and silence the entire body to show respect. I like listening to children's teachings formally, but many of us lose it over time, particularly as life gets busy, like the quadratic equation or the difference in fission and fusion. The consequence is, we sometimes try to listen to several activities, listen to things, or look at a computer.

But a lot of what we transmit comes from nonverbal signs such as facial expressions, movements, and stances. If we listen to multitasking, all the signals are skipped and we send the message to our partner to tell him that cutting or scrolling through our phone is equally necessary. Multitasking is difficult to refrain from. Why does that happen? Listening seems passive since it is mainly internal. It does not feel like an operation. Ensure that you are mindful of your entire body and that your talking partner can be visible.

Great listeners listen to the words below. Listen to what you don't hear. Perhaps the face of the speaker does not suit his words: they may smile when talking about terrible, fragile things. Perhaps your body language unexpectedly changes: maybe you cross your arms and look. Perhaps they are starting to sound defensive, skeptical, or old-fashioned. What to do? You've got all the instruments already. Track your natural curiosity, hear and refrain from evaluating with your entire body, so they are healthy.

Healthy hearing is just a case of tuning in. Connect to the person who speaks, adjust to your interest,t and listen to your judgments.

Effective listening at first can be difficult. It's far more tempting to do something else at once, to speak about your own experience, or to give advice (which is a form of judgment when you think about it: "This is what you have to do"). Yet the work is worth it. Soon, if you listen, you're going to be so sweet, without a word you'll do it.