The Lost Art of Listening (26 page)

tion. This means that, taken too literally, “shut up and listen” isn’t enough

to convey understanding. If you’re telling someone at a party about what

kind of work you do and she’s listening without interrupting, but her eyes

are wandering around the room, you hardly feel listened to.

Whether or not someone is really listening only that person knows.

But, on the other hand, if you don’t feel listened to, you don’t feel listened

152
GETTING THROUGH TO EACH OTHER

to. We judge whether or not others are listening to us by the signals we see.

Are they showing that they’re paying attention by setting aside distrac-

tions and turning toward us?

Before they comment on what we’re saying, people show interest and

attention by maintaining eye contact, smiling with pleasure or frowning

with concern, and making little interjections like “uh-huh” and “really?”

Head nods also show attention; larger and repeated ones show agree-

ment. You don’t have to take Elementary Clinical Methods to learn these

responses; they follow from taking an interest.

The Leading Question

Questions convey interest, but sometimes the interest they convey is tan-

gential to what the person is trying to say. Sometimes the distraction is

obvious. If you’re telling a friend all the inconsiderate things your hus-

band did on your vacation and she interrupts with a lot of questions about

where you stayed, you won’t feel listened to. At other times people seem

to be following but can’t help trying to steer. These listeners impose their

own narrative structures on our experience. Their questions assume that

our stories should fit their scripts: “Problems should be denied or made to

go away”; “Everyone should be together”; “Men are insensitive”; “Bullies

must be confronted.” By finishing our sentences, pumping us with ques-

tions, and otherwise pushing us to say what they want to hear, controlling

listeners violate our right to tell our own stories.

Guidelines for Good Listening

1. Concentrate on the person speaking.

• Set aside distractions.

• Suspend your agenda.

• Interrupt as little as possible. If you do interrupt, it should be

to encourage the speaker to say more.

2. Try to grasp what the speaker is trying to express.

• Don’t react to just the words—listen for the underlying ideas

and feelings.

• Try to put yourself in the other person’s shoes.

• Try to understand what the other person is getting at.

How to Let Go of Your Own Needs and Listen
153

3. Let the speaker know that you understand.

• Use silence, reassuring comments, paraphrasing.

• Offer empathic comments.

• Make opening-up statements (tell me more, what else) versus

closing-off statements (I get it; the same thing happened to

me).

How to Get the Listening You Deserve

(The devil just whispered in my ear that maybe I should make that “. . . the

Listening You Want.” Maybe we already get the listening we deserve. But

I’m not going to listen to that old devil.)

How to Ask for Support Without

Getting Unwanted Advice

One way to get the listening you need is to tell people what you want.

“I’m upset and I need to talk to you. Just listen, okay?”

“I have a problem I need to discuss, but I’m not ready to decide what to

do, so it would be helpful if you could just listen to me.”

If you don’t want a reactive or intrusive response, anticipate your lis-

tener’s expectations.

“I’m not asking you to agree with me, but can you understand where

I’m coming from?”

“I want to tell you something and I don’t want you to get mad at me.

Just listen and think about what I’m saying, will you?”

“I want your opinion about something, but I’ll have to figure out what

I want to do about it. Will you give me some advice, even if I don’t

end up following it?”

If someone gives advice when you just want to be listened to, by all

means say so. But put the emphasis on what you want, not on how intru-

154
GETTING THROUGH TO EACH OTHER

sive she is: “Thanks for the advice, but right now I just want to tell you

about what happened” works better than “I didn’t ask for any advice,” or

“Can’t you just listen for once, without always having to tell me what to

do!”

How to Handle Interruptions

If you’re driving down the road and someone cuts in front of you,

there’s not much you can do about it. Oh, you can hit your horn and call

that person a certain member of the canine family if you wish. But you

pretty much have to yield unless you want to get into an accident. The

same isn’t true when somebody cuts in when you’re talking. You can’t be

interrupted unless you allow it. When you’re talking, you have the right

of way.

If someone starts to interrupt, you can:

• Hold up your index finger.

• Say “Wait a minute, I’m not finished.”

• Just keep talking: “What I was trying to say is . . . ”

If someone does cut you off:

• Instead of getting upset (or instead
of just
getting upset), practice

saying “I wasn’t finished; please hear me out.” Then go back to

what you were saying and finish saying it.

• Comment on feeling cut off, but without lecturing or attacking:

“I wish you’d let me finish what I was saying.”

“I’m sorry, but I can’t pay attention to your story because I wasn’t

finished telling mine.”

“I was trying to tell you something that’s important to me. When

you start talking about something else out of the blue, I feel like

you’re not interested in me or what I have to say.”

“I was listening to that story on the news. I wish you’d wait a min-

ute before breaking in.”

How to Let Go of Your Own Needs and Listen
155

How to Listen to People Who Aren’t Easy to Listen To

If you’re unlucky enough to know someone who’s always talking about

himself or herself, you might appreciate some advice about how to

change that person. The best I can offer is the suggestion to think sys-

temically.

People who talk too much are difficult to endure, but their need for

our attention is genuine. Their neediness is a burden, but they shouldn’t

be made to feel ashamed of it. Shaming people for their needs makes them

feel worse and intensifies the need. Even if you don’t criticize someone for

talking too much, not listening to them has an isolating effect, which only

increases their need to be heard.

When we describe someone as self- centered or say that he’s always

talking about himself, we are in fact describing only half of a relationship.

In forty years of counseling couples, I’ve met very few people who don’t

think they do an unequal share of listening in their relationships. This

isn’t to say that there aren’t people who talk about themselves more than

others, but if we turn away from the needs of those we love, we are part of

the problem.

One of the secrets to dealing with the difficult people in your life

is to figure out how to play the hand you’re dealt, rather than fretting

about what that hand is. The reason some people in our lives remain one-

dimensional is that that’s as far as we go with them. Part of the reason your

father-in-law always wants to talk about himself is that you rarely listen, or

you listen halfheartedly. As long as he feels unlistened to, he’s unlikely to

have much interest in what anyone else has to say. If instead of stewing in

the trapped anxiety of someone with nothing to do but flinch, you listen a

little more to someone who talks too much, you might find the balance of

the relationship shifting. Even a small shift can make a big difference.

Resisting the Temptation to Turn Away

At times when we want to control others’ access to us, we may avoid look-

ing at them. A man watching television may avoid looking at his wife

when she tries to speak to him. Similarly, a waitress may evade a customer’s

glance to prevent his initiating a request she’s too busy to fulfill at the

moment.

156
GETTING THROUGH TO EACH OTHER

A paradoxical example of this responsive unavailability occurs in

psychoanalysis, where the analyst sits behind the recumbent patient. The

result is disconcerting. Unable to see how the therapist is responding, the

patient is unsure of being understood and sympathized with. The therapist

may feel equally uncomfortable in not being able to offer visible evidence

of interest. Eventually, this constrained arrangement turns out to be liber-

ating. The patient, who gets to trust that he won’t be interrupted, learns

to follow his own thoughts more fully and to express them more freely.

The therapist discovers that looking away with no pressure to demonstrate

interest enables him or her to listen more freely and to think about what’s

being said.

What is to be learned from the analyst being liberated to listen by

not having to appear attentive? We’ve noted that listening well means

suspending our needs, including the need to
do
something—to solve prob-

lems, to say the right thing, even to act attentive. Better to
be
attentive. Be

interested. Listen hard. Overcome the need to get credit for listening.

It may not be possible in everyday life to offer that perfect and silent

listening in which analytic patients are encouraged to reveal and recon-

struct themselves. If people have learned not to expect careful listening

from you, you may have to reassure them of your interest. But if you listen

carefully, people will learn to trust you. Just listening, without interrupting

or turning away, goes a long way toward establishing that trust.

Exercises

1.
The next time someone you care about has something to say, give him

or her your full attention for three minutes. How long did those three

minutes seem? How hard was it to stay tuned? How hard did you have

to work to suppress what you wanted to say? What were the conse-

quences of devoting that time to listening?

2.
Note the next time someone responds to you with advice instead of

listening. Write down later how you felt and why you think he or she

couldn’t hear you out.

3.
Is there someone you can listen to without jumping in with advice or

correction? If so, why? Does it have anything to do with respect?

GETTING THROUGH TO EACH OTHER

Empathy Begins with Openness

8

…

“I Never Knew

You Felt That Way”

Empathy Begins with Openness

Among the unhelpful expectations we bring to listening are preconceived

notions about what the speaker is going to say and how communication

should take place. Assuming you know what someone is going to say means

you don’t have to bother to listen.

Our assumptions about how people should talk to each other aren’t

usually conscious; they’re part of the way we were brought up. Assuming

that your way of communicating is the right one means you’ll have trouble

relating to people with different conversational styles and sensitivities.

Such assumptions come in pairs of opposites, such as:

“Polite people make requests indirectly” versus “Honest people say

what they want.”

“Explanations should be short and sweet (rambling on is boring)” ver-

sus “Explanations should be thorough and complete (make sure the

other person understands what you mean).”

The listener who settles for confirming his expectations is like the

museum-goer who looks at paintings only long enough to verify the name

157

158
GETTING THROUGH TO EACH OTHER

of the artist; he’ll never get closer to another person’s experience. There is

no bridge of understanding, no touching. The listener who remains open,

on the other hand, sometimes experiences surprise and delight as his

assumptions topple and he discovers the speaker—child, lover, friend—in

a deeper, fuller way.

The essence of good listening is empathy, achieved by being

receptive to what other people are trying to say and how

they express themselves. Empathy takes a mind open

to other sensibilities.

Although most people would improve their listening by setting aside

preconceived notions and remaining receptive to what others are trying

to say, a complete absence of assumptions is neither possible nor desirable.

Anticipation is useful. Anticipating how someone might react can help

you express yourself more effectively; anticipating a speaker’s needs and

style of communicating can help you hear all levels of messages being sent.

So, what am I saying? Are expectations a help or a hindrance to listen-

ing?

Expectations hinder communication when they take the form of fixed

assumptions and egocentric perspectives. Such expectations are unexam-