Can You Hear Me Now?

Hearing is a natural gift to most of us. As we go about our lives, our ears are constantly picking up frequencies that we learned to decode and give some meaning to. Whether it is the radio, or the birds and the wind while on a walk through the forest, or perhaps even the voice of a close friend while in conversation, most of us -- unless physically impaired -- have the ability to hear, understand and quantify this stimulus. But since this ability comes easily to most of us, most of the time we end up taking it for granted and in the process our interactions with each other become superficial and casual. We end up wondering why it is so difficult to connect, why it is so hard to create intimacy? To bond with our world and with our surroundings we must learn how to listen and listening requires a bit more care, a bit more focus. How can we improve our listening skills to help us deepen our presence in this world and to better our relationship with each other? Here are 5 things to consider:

Listening vs. hearing
This is a distinction that most of us understand right away. Hearing is the simple physical act. As a sound is produced, our ears receive the information and our brains recognize it. Listening happens when understanding is involved, when our minds give meaning to the information. The exciting aspect of listening is that it sometimes can happen before or even without any hearing. How many times have your heard or understood what your partner, or a close friend has in mind without any words being said? How was that possible? How connected did you feel at that point? How validated did the other person feel? How often do we open ourselves to this level of listening? Every conversation is an opportunity to connect. But connection only happens when true listening occurs.

Know what to listen for
We cannot hear everything in a conversation. It is humanly impossible. The spoken language is a tool we humans created with the goal to express our ideas and feelings. Although we have amazingly developed it, it still is a rational skill. No human feeling will ever be entirely expressed by words alone. So, in the midst of all the noise, the consonants and the vowels, what is it that the person in front of you is truly saying? Or, what is it that this person is not saying? What is motivating the conversation? What is the mood? There is so much we can learn from simply noticing the tone of the voice, the pace, choice of words. Remember, language is a code. It is up to us to listen to what is behind the code and understand its true meaning. We will listen more deeply when we are better able to tune to the essence of the message.

Quiet your mind
Often times there are 3 people involved in a conversation, even though there are only 2 bodies. We are talking with someone, but at the same time, we are also talking with ourselves. How can we truly be present if we are not able to silence the chatter in our own head? Have you ever had the experience of talking with someone and feeling that the other person is not really listening to you? You look into the person’s eyes and you know that his/her attention is somewhere else. How annoying is that? How disrespectful? You want this person to listen to what you are saying but you can sense that his/her own words and assumptions are coming first or that perhaps something else is more important. Have you ever done that yourself? A true conversation can only happen when we are able to put our own agenda aside, reserve our judgment and put the other person first.

Silence is golden
A lot of us feel very uncomfortable with silence. If while in a conversation we feel that the line of thought is about to drop, we immediately try to come up with a different idea to keep the conversation going. Some of us really know how to say a lot of words without meaning much. Sometimes, it is better to say nothing. There is nothing wrong with silence. On the contrary, there are many times when silence is much more articulate than any word. Learn how to master these moments. Learn how to produce them and make sure the other person is comfortable with it and is taking value from it. Silence can be just the moment you or the other person needs to process what has been said or perhaps to remember something that would bring value to the conversation. It can also be a time when all of your other senses are communicating. No talking, just being. Like “a picture,” silence is also worth a thousand words.

Listen to your heart
Intuition is also a very important tool to use when we are involved in a personal interaction. Different than listening to the chatter in our own heads, this is the inner feeling that we have while engaging with someone else. Nowadays, we are not encouraged to pay much attention to it. Since intuition is something that it is not easily explained and quantified, we tend to dismiss and undervalue it. But our instincts are real and they can help us understand each other in a much deeper level. While talking with someone, listen to how you feel. How does your body react? What do you sense that speaks to you beyond the spoken words? But also, and perhaps most importantly, how can you bring these feelings out into the conversation? How can you candidly and compassionately use this as a subject matter? How can you let your partner know what you are sensing? How can this help you both to connect?

Yes, hearing is an innate gift most of us have, but deep listening is a skill we have to acquire. Deep listening is more than an auditory event. We listen not only with our ears, but perhaps even more so with our whole body, our whole mind. Many times we simply hear to each other and as a result, we miss each other. We forget to focus, to pay attention and it becomes so difficult to build a deeper relationship and to nourish connections in which we feel validated and understood. Next time you are talking with someone, try to go beyond the words. See if that can help you find out more about the person in front of you. Be quiet and listen! You might be surprised with what you can hear!