The gift of listening

Do we listen enough to each other? Lately, I’ve noticed myself engaging in conversations where I quickly want to apply what the other person is telling me, to events or thoughts related to my own life. It seems entirely natural to do this, as we like to ground our understanding in what we know and communicate to the other person that we ‘get’ what they are saying. But I also think sometimes by switching the conversation to myself, it's truthfully a little selfish. I don’t need to interrupt the other person. What would the benefit be to the other person if I just let them talk, so I can truly listen to what is being said?

In every relationship; in our personal lives or at work, good communication is key to that relationship thriving. Good communication doesn’t just mean talking. It also means listening. Being present and active enough to listen is a gift we can give to each other. I cannot count the times my husband has been speaking to me, and I’ve not given him my full attention, whether that be due to my thoughts being elsewhere or being on my phone. I might be hearing but I’m not listening. I might defend myself by exclaiming “I’m multi-tasking” at these times, but I don’t feel the same about multi-tasking as I once did. Before, I liked to see myself as a superwoman who could multi-task many things at once. However, my new principles of mindfulness don’t support this anymore. That juggling of many balls in the air led me to become stressed and unhappy in the past. Now, I engage in the principle of concentrating on one task at a time. As a result, I feel that I engage in it more fully and therefore more successfully.

This weekend, I was very busy at work. I had so much to do, I was running around, forgetting my one task at a time principle, and as a result I wasn’t really achieving anything other than rushing frantically from one room to another, and raising my stress levels. I work with children and one little girl quietly started talking to me. I wasn’t really listening to her. I think I even made an excuse to her that I was too busy right now. Suddenly though some gut instinct within me told me to stop and listen. So, I listened to that, I stopped, I listened and she shared something with me that was very important to her. In that moment, she trusted me enough to talk. And I just listened. I am unable to share with you what the little girl said, but it changed the whole course of my day, and in particular it completely changed my priorities, my mindset and my actions following it. For the little girl, by simply listening to her fully meant she felt safer, happier and valued.

In a world of a myriad distractions and a culture of digital monopolising, we rarely engage in full, uninterrupted conversations anymore. People don’t talk face to face anymore or even on the phone. In fact over the years, I found myself disliking talking on the phone. I have no idea why, other than, like a skill, I’ve stopped practising and therefore I’ve started to fear it slightly. Weird. In a world where talking isn’t fully valued anymore; instead we message, we post, we scroll; no wonder listening has taken even more of a back seat. But the benefits of listening should be celebrated. Listening opens our minds and often our hearts to another person. By being open to another person’s ideas and thoughts, we learn, we develop too.

Listening has to be done actively. We have to consciously decide to do it. That is the difference between hearing and listening. We can hear without really processing what we are hearing – not consciously anyway – but to listen, we have to make a choice. In a world where we are constantly being drawn away from interacting with each other in person, listening is becoming less and less familiar. This week, I learnt that listening is often the only thing needed to help someone.