Listening Skills
Improving how we relate to others by examining our emotional reactions and learning new methods of self-expression can do much to help our communication skills. However, these methods cannot be very effective without cultivating the art of listening. As a skill, learning how to listen is a strong component of many approaches for improving communication. NVC sums it up by the observation that in dialogue, instead of truly listening, the other person is busy preparing their response. Putting aside our personal agenda in times of conflict so that we can be receptive to the other person’s needs is not a natural process for most of us, but it can be learned.
A remarkable system of communication currently popular in political grassroots peace-making projects is known as Compassionate Listening. Based on a spiritual platform, it was founded by Quaker activist Gene Hoffman, and is a powerful tool for reconciliation by its emphasis on withholding judgments. It invites us to replace those judgments with compassion for our fellow humans, no matter how different they may seem to be from us. The premise lies in the acknowledgement that if we could see ourselves living another person’s life, we might have made the same choices. This can lead to a profound shift in personal perspective and allows us to relate with basic human understanding. Cultural differences then become secondary, and resolution is more possible.
Compassionate Listening offers insights into new ways of human relationship in line with our evolutionary development. Carol Hwoschinsky is a therapist and mediator who uses the tools from Compassionate Listening. She writes in her article “Healing The World From The Inside Out” (2004) in Sentient Times that because of the evolution of our nervous system and brain, we are “no longer bound by [the fight-or-flight] conditioned response….we are able to delay action when we are threatened or alarmed. We have the ability to observe ourselves more objectively and can monitor our actions in the present moment.”
Perhaps it is because of this increased ability, due to evolution, to delay our response that we can assimilate innovative methods such as Non-Violent Communication, which focuses on practicing empathy. Empathy is deliberately practiced in NVC by guessing the other’s feelings and needs, striving to understand rather than necessarily “get it right.” To be able to remove the focus on our agenda and take the time to investigate the other’s emotional concerns is sufficient for a remarkable shift in energy to occur, and it allows us to be truly compassionate in that delayed reaction space. When we practice self-empathy, we listen inwardly to connect with our own feelings and needs, and then we can choose to either express ourselves to others or receive them with empathy.
Scientific findings applied to Compassionate Listening concur. For instance, recent research on the heart reveals new information on its direct effect upon the brain and on perception. In Hwoschinskly’s article mentioned above, she notes the remarkable fact that “sixty to sixty-five percent of the heart’s cells are actually neural cells, identical to those in the brain [and this] indicates that the heart is a major center of intelligence in human beings.” Therefore, focusing on heart-centered emotions of empathy and compassion allows our brain to be engaged—as well as all other organs of the body—in positive ways. In addition, better physical health is the result of loving thoughts about ourselves and others. It becomes a process that feeds upon itself. For as we mitigate feelings of judgment and anxiety for our personal well-being, we are able to truly put ourselves in others’ emotional shoes.
A similar approach to the importance of listening can be found in what is called Syntonic Listening. Suzette Elgin, PhD. describes this kind of listening in her book Staying Well With The Gentle Art of Self Defense (1990) as “tuning yourself to the person speaking and giving the person the kind of total attention that allows you to maintain the in-tune state.” She goes on to list the barriers to the ability to practice Syntonic Listening, and they include many things. Among them are: thinking about another subject while the other person is speaking; thinking about how “wrong” the speaker is, or how badly he/she may be saying something; rehearsing what it is we want to say; etc.
In her book, Elgin goes on to quote Dr. James Lynch of University Of Maryland Medical School about some medical discoveries regarding the practice of listening. Apparently, subjects that were monitored while engaging in Syntonic Listening demonstrated a drop in their blood pressure and a drop in their heart rate. Conversely, talking about random subjects raised blood pressure and heart rate. Thus, for people unable to tolerate blood pressure medicine, the value of learning to become focused and attuned listeners is significant.
Regardless of whether we cultivate it or not, the art of being able to listen empathetically is not foreign to us. We are all more or less able to be in these modes based on our immediate experience; more optimally when we are not being emotionally challenged. Dr. Marisue Pickering, a University of Maine researcher, identifies some characteristics of listening empathetically, and they include aspects that have been mentioned above. However, she discovered that there are personal predilections in people that will make them more naturally able to listen empathetically. The salient characteristics that emerge in the naturally empathetic listener has, as a basis, the innate desire to be directed more toward others and their personal experience than one’s own in the moment of absorbing information about them. A sense of self-security and true curiosity about others is important in keeping the empathetic listener from automatically projecting their own experience onto another. As well, the tendency to be non-defensive in general is listed, and the ability to listen as a receiver rather than a critic.
To illustrate, in her research article in "Communication" (1986) in the journal Explorations, Pickering defines the naturally empathetic listener as one who is able to “imagine the roles, perspectives or experiences of the other, rather than assuming they are the same as one’s own.” She suggests how to cultivate a skill in empathetic listening that is very useful in this practice. This consists of being very attentive to our perceptions, and checking throughout the conversation to see if they are accurate and valid. To facilitate this, other skills would be engaged. These would include offering supportive response to the speaker through re-statement or paraphrasing, reflecting feelings that may have been intuited by the listener, and asking non-judgmental, clarifying questions.
As far as clarification goes, it is important to point out that we often make what seem to be reasonable and innocent assumptions about what another person is saying, only to discover later that an entire conversation has taken place with different understandings. The art of interpreting what another is saying, or offering a tentative interpretation about the other’s feelings, desires or meanings, during the conversation will help us to become aware of our assumptions and where we stand. Offering the other person time to think as well as to talk is also a very important skill that Pickering mentions.
To build upon the importance of good listening skills, the community-building groups mentioned earlier valued and practiced a technique which is described below. In practicing deep communication during times of conflict, it was encouraged that one be allowed to express their feelings, as was described previously. However, in order to help the other person openly receive intense feelings, a construct for perceiving this process differently was offered. This new perspective, studied at group meetings, was informally labeled Non-Judgmental Validation.
The concept of Non-Judgmental Validation encourages active group support for people who are currently targets of personal complaints by helping them understand and agree to some ground rules. These are as follows: most importantly, the group is there to help them believe that it is definitely possible to listen to a complainant without any judgment of the situation in the moment, if it is done deliberately. Further, it is important to understand that withholding judgment does not automatically mean that the one being complained against is “wrong” or “conceding victory” (which was assumed in childhood when we could not effectively respond to authority figures). The group supports the listener’s ego in wanting to defend itself; yet patience is encouraged to delay this process long enough to investigate deeper aspects that may surface. Although we have been conditioned to defend ourselves fast, in order to preclude the other person “getting the upper hand,” it is possible that by listening attentively and waiting, our opinions might change drastically as unexpected aspects are revealed.
Something almost magical can happen with this type of process. By inviting the complainant to vent and asking for further clarification, enough validation can occur so as to immediately promote a more relaxed and trusting energetic shift.
Sometimes, the conflict can even be resolved rather speedily by the complainants themselves—including admission of their own need to change—because they have been freely allowed to disclose their emotional landscape. This surprising turn of events is the result of their feeling secure in themselves based on the compassion and encouragement that is present in the listener.
Indeed, as David Lieberman points out in his book Make Peace With Anyone (2002), the empathetic listener is advised to actively engage in “paraphrasing what to you’ve just been told to crystallize [the] complaint and to show that you that have been listening and that you understand.” The next step, according to him, is to try to help restore the speaker’s self-respect by asking for their opinion, or even a favor. This will be very effective in balancing the energy towards harmony, and this sets the stage toward resolution. Lieberman’s philosophy is that a person is always more tractable and willing to negotiate when they feel they have some measure of control, and do not feel discounted.