The Ministry of Listening
We do not believe in ourselves until someone reveals that something deep inside us is valuable, worth listening to, worthy of our trust, sacred to our touch. Once we believe in ourselves, we can risk curiosity, wonder, spontaneous delight or any experience that reveals the human spirit.
-E.E. Cummings
I am trying to become a better listener. Here are a few things I am learning. When people trust me enough to share their story with me, there is an onus on me to actively listen; to treat that conversation with respect and dignity.
Listening to Hear:
Observation One: (There is nothing I have to say to someone that is more important than what they have to say to me!)
Active listening means being fully present with the person who is sharing. It means being 100% “in the moment” and pushing distractions away. When we are fully engaged in a person’s story, we are ascribing value to the person. I have a dear friend who is a highly qualified psychologist, theologian and master coach. I marvel that he even has time to converse with me. Yet, I love my conversations with him because he shows genuine excitement and interest in what I am sharing. I feel that I am heard, not out of obligation, but out of interest. He is both engaged and engaging.
Active listening means avoiding the temptation to be formulating a response to the things the person is saying while they are still speaking. When we are anxious to get our response started, we are subtly conveying the idea that what we have to share is more important than the contribution of the other person. We demean others by not hearing them thoroughly.
Listening to Understand:
Observation Two: (There is a greater limit on my understanding of others than I am usually ready to admit!)
Listening to understand means acknowledging that we do not necessarily comprehend what the person is trying to communicate. When we have quick answer comebacks instead of studied responses, we are de-valuing the communication of the other person. It is an indication that we are only listening at a superficial level.
When we are listening to understand we will use follow-up ‘curiosity-based’ questions to discover more. We will not be focussing on providing ‘ready-made’ answers. Questions indicate both interest and engagement and convey to the person speaking that we really do want to understand.
Listening to understand means we will learn the skill of ‘repeating back’ to the person what we think we have heard to ensure that we have heard it correctly and have not misunderstood what the other person is attempting to say.
Listening to Learn:
Observation Three: (What I have yet to learn is far more than the accumulation of what I already know!)
We develop good listening skills by genuinely believing that we can learn something from every conversation we have, convinced that every person we encounter adds value to our life. We learn even from our greatest critics.
When we honestly seek to learn from another person, absorbing what they have to share, we are subliminally communicating their value to them and their importance to us. Good listening elevates the other person’s sense of self-worth.
I have discovered that my greatest asset in helping others comes, not from my ability to speak, nor from the reservoir of my own knowledge, but from my ability to listen well. I’m still working on it. It’s a lifelong task.