Listening, truly, deeply listening to another, is one of the greatest things you can do for someone. By being present with your mind and body, you are communicating to the other person “you matter greatly.” “What you have to say is important.” And “I care about you.”
How well do you listen to others? Do you let others talk and talk and then respond, or do you interrupt and bring the topic back to you? We all have our usual ways of communicating, and listening is a huge part of our style. What would other people who are close to you say about your listening? How would they rank you on a 1 to 10 scale? How do you feel when someone else truly and deeply listens to you? I’m guessing you feel pretty great: amazing, valued, cared for, heard. We all want to be heard. It is a way of being seen. Listening, I would propose, is one of the most important skills we can implement, develop, and fine-tune.
Have you ever had this experience? You are listening to someone and you actually can hear what’s not being said? Yes, that’s right, what’s not being said. In coaching, we say this is Level Three Listening… listening so deeply that we get information about the person not just based on their words, but from the absence of certain kinds of thinking, from their non-verbals, from our own intuition. When you listen at this level, the other person feels heard. It provides an opportunity to ask better questions and to allow the person speaking to go deeper into their thinking. Its a very powerful way of being with another person. It is the opposite of ‘chit chat.’ It is where real ‘aha’ moments and problem solving can take place. Conversation with people can be meaningful and even healing every time. I’ve rarely heard someone say “I love chit-chat!” Nope, people in general, want deeper connections to others… which is actually what we seek in our lives, continuously throughout our lifetime.
Can you be the person in each conversation that listens for what’s not being said? What could this type of listening do for your relationships? What could you learn about the people in your life if you stopped talking long enough to hear what matters to them? What if someone could listen to you like this? I bet it would change you….I know it would make a difference in your relationships. I know it’s what means a lot to me.
