Are You Even Listening?

It’s rare to find someone who listens to you. I mean, someone who really listens to you in a deep, heartfelt way.

Listening is a long-forgotten skill and with the introduction of texting, listening is being forgotten even faster. There is a saying that states, “Men are born with two ears but only one tongue, which indicates that they were meant to listen twice as much as they talk.” Unfortunately, one of our least developed skills is listening. Because we like to talk more than we listen. And if we don’t listen, how can we even understand without listening to anyone?

Not to deny that being listened to is a fundamental human need. It strikes at the core of what makes us human. Because we always want to be understood. And the best way to understand people is to listen to them. Not only this but when people feel that you have really listened to them, you will gain their respect and they will value and give you the credibility to speak.

Learn to listen than hear!

Hearing tells you that music is playing, but listening tells you what the song is saying.

We must try harder to truly listen, not just hear.

Listening is acknowledging the existence and worth of someone else. As an ideal listener, you need to selflessly give your time and attention to another person’s story, circumstance, ideas, or feelings without a need to correct, edit or interrupt in between.

Consider how you feel when you sense someone is really listening to what you have to say. And also how it feels when someone doesn’t, when you really really want them to listen?

When someone listens to you, you feel good, you feel understood, and more connected to the person who is listening. The fact that they are interested causes you to feel cared for. Although we may not have solutions to the problems they are facing, they will be grateful just to know we are willing to listen. When you become more attuned to the thoughts and emotions of others through listening to them, you become more alive to the world and it becomes more alive to you.

The Power of Listening

We often categorize listening as the counterpart of talking, but it is actually a more powerful position in communication. Listening allows you to acknowledge and embrace the world that is going on outside your head. In this way, you can also sort out what’s going on inside your head, by taking the references from listening to those experiences.

It is only by listening that we engage, understand, connect, empathize, and develop as human beings. It is fundamental to any successful relationship—personal, or professional.

Listening is your gift to grant someone. It is a courtesy plus a sign of respect. It is the epitome of graciousness. And unlike most things in your life, listening is fully under your control. You get to decide who deserves your attention, what you need to properly listen or what you need to ignore. While you might take listening for granted, how well you listen, to whom, and under what circumstances determines your life’s course.

You learn when you listen. After all, if my colleague were to share something similar that had happened to her, it would be an additional comfort knowing that I was not alone in that particular situation. In this way, it becomes easier to accept my situation and deal with my feelings.

How to listen?

Being a good listener isn’t always easy though. It’s difficult. After all, it can be difficult to listen when someone is talking about something of little or no personal interest; or they are talking in a disjointed way or with no logic, or their topic is much detail-oriented, or they are talking with overwhelming emotion or from an erratic vision. What to do in such cases- listen or not listen?

To listen does not mean that you agree with someone. It simply means you accept the legitimacy of the other person’s point of view and that you might have something to learn from it. It also means that you embrace the possibility that there might be multiple truths and understanding them all might lead to a larger truth. Good listeners know understanding is not binary and it can always be improved. Moreover, to understand and be understood—only happens when we slow down and take the time to listen.

To really listen is to be moved physically, chemically, emotionally, and intellectually by another person’s narrative. To truly listen you need to make space in your heart, mind, and soul for the thoughts of the person who is speaking. Once that space has been created, it allows you to establish a deep connection.

Bottom Line

There is a crisis of listening in our world, especially in this text-based world, where listening is quite rare. There are a lot of people who want to talk but very few who want to listen, and we are seeing people suffer from it. Most of us, no matter how connected we are, feel isolated, because of the lack of listening. We keep suppressing and denying our negative emotions, because we don’t find anyone to whom we can talk, regarding our problems. We don’t find anyone who will listen to us without being judgemental.

So can we please listen more just to listen, without inserting our own story or our own opinions? And can we please help others a little in this way?

YES! We can and we must!