just listen!

Do you consider yourself a good listener?

Are there people in your life who are good listeners?

What IS a good listener, anyway?

If you asked me 5 or 10 years ago if I was a good listener, I would have probably said ‘yes.’ No one ever told me I wasn’t, and since people would occasionally share stuff with me and seem to feel better afterwards, that made me a good listener, right?

I’m not so sure.

Back then, I would have said a good listener is someone who people want to talk to. And after the conversation, the person doing the talking feels better.

My old understanding implies that as a listener, my role is to help or uplift the other person.

But over the last few years, my thoughts on listening have evolved.

My husband and I have been learning how to communicate better with each other.

We’ve worked on speaking our feelings truthfully and listening to each other deeply.

This has been extremely rewarding…as well as completely ass-kicking at times. It’s helped me see that true listening is a skill; one that I understand quite differently now.

Early on in our relationship, my husband would want to process something out loud, and he’d ask me to listen.

Back then, my approach to listening was often to offer advice.

Sometimes I had internal resistance to what he was talking about...and I let it show.

Sometimes I disagreed with what he was sharing.

Sometimes I tried to correct him.

My husband was sharing his thoughts and feelings and observations. Rarely was he asking for a discussion or for advice. When he was looking for my input, he would let me know.

After lots and lots and LOTS of situations in which his request to be heard was met with my need to advise, fix, or teach, he started asking me VERY SPECIFICALLY:

‘I need to share something, could you just listen?’

(He’s such a smart man.)

I wish I could say that it was easy for me to just listen.

But honestly, I’ve had to work very hard on it.

I’ve long felt a need to ‘fix’ what’s going on with other people. Maybe it’s because I’m an empath. I feel tangible discomfort in my own body when someone around me is struggling with an uncomfortable emotion.

So often, my desire - though unconscious - has been to try to help the person feel better by offering something of myself…including advice, solutions, and corrections.

Looking back, I can remember times when my attempts to help instead of listen sorely missed the mark.

Over time, as my husband asked me if I could ‘just listen’, the lightbulb started to go on.

I began to regard listening as something sacred and important…and not always easy for the ‘helper’ in me.

After four years of hard work, I can’t say that I’m a perfect listener. But the times I jump in and try to ‘fix’ my sweetie are fewer and further between.

I’m a listener in progress!

Here’s why learning to just listen is really important if you want to have strong relationships.

1. When someone asks you to listen, they’re inviting you to participate in a kind of dance where they share, and you hear.

Sometimes the sharing is about an external situation in which you’re not involved…such as a friend venting to you about conflicts she’s been having at work.

Sometimes the sharing might involve you…for instance, when your partner tells you he feels hurt by a comment you made to him the other day.

When the sharing involves you, even tangentially, it can be challenging to just hear.

(Ask me how I know.)

But even when your defenses may get triggered, it’s still imperative that you listen. If the other person can’t share without an argument erupting, how will you be able to move forward together?

Being a good listener requires you to separate your listening self from your interacting self.

After hearing what the other person has to say, you may be able to share your feelings and have a productive conversation.

But if, as a listener, you get triggered, you won’t be able to actually HEAR the other person.

If you can’t hear, it will be difficult not to escalate into an argument…and that can be unproductive and detrimental to your relationship.

2. It’s THEIR experience.

A good listener allows the other person to share their experience, feelings, and internal processes.

They are trusting you to just listen.

It’s important to understand that what they’re sharing is theirs.

It’s not up for debate.

It’s not something to argue with.

Your job is to LISTEN. And to listen, you have to de-center yourself for a bit and center them.

Have you ever tried to share your feelings with someone, only to be shut down or argued with?

It doesn’t feel good, right?

3. Until you can listen with curiosity, you can’t actually know the other person.

You can’t get a glimpse into what they’re going through.

To be a good listener requires a great deal of humility. The humility to know that you can’t - actually - know better for them than they can for themselves.

Back when my husband would ask me to ‘just listen’, I didn’t realize I was showing a real lack of humility by trying to correct and fix him.

My personal desire to fix and help was so deeply ingrained that it superseded being fully present for my husband - who I loved dearly - in his time of need.

Listening with humility is being curious about the other person and admitting you can’t know everything about their experience.

These days, I don’t always listen perfectly…in my marriage or friendships.

But working on listening has paid dividends.

Not only is my marriage stronger, but many of my interactions are better…with my coaching clients, friends and neighbors.

And lest I give the impression that I’ve only been working on listening…

I’ve also grown tremendously in my ability to express my true feelings.

In situations where I’m being shut down, I ask to be heard. And if the other person isn’t in a place where they can hear, I let them go with love, until they are in a place where they can truly hear me.

Learning to listen - without negating, correcting, fixing, or solving - can change the world.

It can change the world on a large scale, and it can change your world locally.

And you know what?

It can even change your internal world, because if we resist deeply listening to others, what parts of ourselves are we not listening to?

Food for thought! Join my Community group here. Or click here to schedule a free 30-minute connection call to chat about what’s up for you. And for more juicy life stuff, check out my podcast, coming home (to yourself). As always, may your week be filled with self-love and rich insights. With love, Amy ♡♡♡