BECOME A HEALING LISTENER

over 9 years ago
estherlibra didn't upload a photo

EstherLibra (estherlibra)

1569 posts

1. Begin to hear clearly; resensitize yourself to routine words.

If you have heard a phrase repeatedly, you may tend to ignore it; you may have never really heard it. Sharpen your awareness of your own patterns of dialogue, the rhythm of your back-and-forth, by deliberately listening as though you have never before heard your partner.

2. Listen to yourself.

Without becoming paralyzingly self-conscious or judgmental, begin to be more aware of your own words. How closely do they correspond to what you are really trying to communicate? Do you tend to rely on the same well-worn phrases, thereby perhaps desensitizing your partner to their meanings? Do you tend to express yourself vaguely or indirectly, leaving your partner to guess your exact meaning and perhaps becoming angry when they fail?

3. Make written notes to expand your objectivity and fine-tune your awareness of the subtleties of dialogue. After you have a conversation, jot down a summary of the content and if you can recall the exact words, put them in writing before memory fades or distorts. Your immediate perception of what is said will sharpen when you form the habit of recalling bits of dialogue word for word. In fact, you are likely to discover that your recall improves, even when you don’t have a chance to make notes, because the habit of writing trains you to listen well.

4. Think of listening in terms of what you are not doing. Effective listening requires your concentration, your complete energy. When you listen with focus, you are not busily formulating what you will say next or, worse, making your mental grocery list; you are not glancing at television or humming a song, answering the telephone, watching someone across the room or stating into space, lost in your own inner world.

5. Find role models whose manner immediately invites disclosure from others.

What characteristics do these people have? Their tone of voice, facial expression and gestures indicate unmistakably that they are totally receptive to the one person they are listening to. Notice that open people are open both ways – open to others’ feelings as well as open about their own. Observing the components of their receptivity and analyzing their absorbed interactions will guide you in developing your own personal style of healing listening.

6. Practice the magic of absorbed listening, intense eye contact and concentrated presence.

Your facial expressions, nods of your head and posture should indicate that you are hearing, understanding and feeling what your partner is saying. By inviting and supporting open responses from your partner, these practices alone will deepened your level of communication.

You may protest that such gestures are not natural to you and will seem rehearsed. However, as you practice them they will tend to become genuine and spontaneous, just as your learning to talk or talk has. Appropriate feelings tend to follow where sincerely motivated changes in behaviour lead.

over 9 years ago

Great information!