The most basic and powerful way to connect to another person is to listen. Just listen. Perhaps the most important thing we ever give each other is our attention.
A loving silence often has far more power to heal and to connect than the most well-intentioned words.
Unfortunately, listening is a skill that not many people master; most people would rather talk. When you're talking, you're in control. You don't have to hear anything you're not interested in. You are the center of attention. You can bolster your own identity.
The other reason we’d rather talk is because it’s easy to get distracted when we listen. The average person talks at about 225 words per minute, but we can listen at up to 500 words per minute. So our minds are filling in those other 275 words (...notice your mind begins to wander...). We go to our thoughts about what's for dinner, or how we can fix the other person's problem, or how many ways they could have done that differently.
It takes effort and energy to actually pay attention to someone, but if you can't do that, you're not in a conversation. The irony of being a good conversationalist is that talking isn’t the most important piece; listening is what makes you memorable.
We live in a culture of perfectionism where our idealized selves become our social currency, the soul and the heart too often go homeless. Usually when you tried to tell your story people often interrupted you to tell you that they once had something just like that happen to them. Subtly your pain became a story about themselves. Eventually you stopped talking to most people. It was just too lonely. We connect through listening. When we interrupt what someone is saying to let them know that we understand, we move the focus of attention to ourselves. When we listen, they know we care.
When we haven't the time to listen to each other's stories we seek out experts to tell us how to live. The less time we spend together at the dining table, the more how-to books appear in the stores and on our bookshelves. But reading such books is a very different thing than listening to someone's lived experience.
Listening - really listening - takes practice.
And presence.
Mindfulness.
You can even practice it alone.
Set a stopwatch. For 15 seconds, stay quiet and listen. What do you hear? Try it again and see if you can hear more this time. What new sounds were there?
Listening is the art of closing one's mouth and opening one's ears and heart. Get connected.
Unfortunately, listening is a skill that not many people master; most people would rather talk. When you're talking, you're in control. You don't have to hear anything you're not interested in. You are the center of attention. You can bolster your own identity.
The other reason we’d rather talk is because it’s easy to get distracted when we listen. The average person talks at about 225 words per minute, but we can listen at up to 500 words per minute. So our minds are filling in those other 275 words (...notice your mind begins to wander...). We go to our thoughts about what's for dinner, or how we can fix the other person's problem, or how many ways they could have done that differently.
It takes effort and energy to actually pay attention to someone, but if you can't do that, you're not in a conversation. The irony of being a good conversationalist is that talking isn’t the most important piece; listening is what makes you memorable.
We live in a culture of perfectionism where our idealized selves become our social currency, the soul and the heart too often go homeless. Usually when you tried to tell your story people often interrupted you to tell you that they once had something just like that happen to them. Subtly your pain became a story about themselves. Eventually you stopped talking to most people. It was just too lonely. We connect through listening. When we interrupt what someone is saying to let them know that we understand, we move the focus of attention to ourselves. When we listen, they know we care.
When we haven't the time to listen to each other's stories we seek out experts to tell us how to live. The less time we spend together at the dining table, the more how-to books appear in the stores and on our bookshelves. But reading such books is a very different thing than listening to someone's lived experience.
Listening - really listening - takes practice.
And presence.
Mindfulness.
You can even practice it alone.
Set a stopwatch. For 15 seconds, stay quiet and listen. What do you hear? Try it again and see if you can hear more this time. What new sounds were there?
Listening is the art of closing one's mouth and opening one's ears and heart. Get connected.
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