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What can you
say to get through to your child? How can you have more meaningful
discussions with your partner? What magic words can you utter to
improve your relationship with that "difficult" co-worker? The answer
may not be talking at all, but listening! Whether you are interacting
with your child, your partner or your co-worker, using the Active
Listening Process promotes effective communication, increases the level
of understanding and creates an atmosphere of mutual respect within any
relationship. The
process of active listening involves three main components: 1) Mirroring 2) Validating and 3) Empathizing. It is a
process that is not used in every day communication, but can be a very
effective way to communicate about difficult issues.
Mirroring is
simply paraphrasing what the other person has said to you, or
reflecting back the content of the message you just heard. For example,
your child comes home from school with a whole list of stressful and
unexpected events that transpired throughout the day. Mirroring might
simply be saying "It sounds like you've had a really difficult day at
school!" Validating
is setting aside your own frame of reference and validating the
speaker's thoughts. Without necessarily agreeing with the speaker's
point of view, you are accepting the logic, validity and worth of the
speaker's thoughts. In other words, you are indicating to the speaker
that what she/he is saying makes some sense. Phrases such as "I can
understand that", "That makes sense", "It's important for you" and "You
have a point", can help you validate the speaker's thoughts.
Continuing the example
from above, your child finishes describing her horrible day at school
and adds an emphatic, "And I have so much homework! I hate homework! It
will take me a million hours to finish all this stuff before tomorrow,
and I'll NEVER have ANY time to spend with my best friend!"
Now, you are sure from
past experience that your child will be done with her homework in less
than an hour. In addition, your daughter's best friend is at your house
so much she practically lives with you. While you could launch into a
mini-lecture, stating all of the obvious truths above, this will no
doubt result in a daughter who has not only had a difficult day at
school and is stressed out about homework, but also upset at her parent
who doesn't understand how she feels. In order to validate what your
daughter is saying, the trick is for you to save the mini-lecture, jump
into your daughter's shoes and simply make a statement such as "It's
important for you have time with your best friend, and having a lot of
homework can certainly get in the way of that." Once the speaker feels heard and
understood, the next important step of the active listening process is
empathizing. Empathizing
is recognizing the feelings of the speaker, and reflecting those
feelings back to the speaker. In a sense, you are using your heart to
connect with the speaker, on a feeling level. Some phrases to help you
accomplish this might be, "It looks like you feel...", "It sounds like
you feel...", "I can sense that you are experiencing..."
To empathize with your
daughter's difficult day and substantial homework load, you need to get
beyond the content and listen for your daughter's underlying feelings.
An appropriate empathetic response might be, "It sounds like you are
really feeling upset about your difficult day, and stressed out about
all the homework you have to complete on top of it."
All three components are
simple concepts and relatively easy to learn, but often times difficult
to implement. This is because of our tendency to stay locked into our
own positions and viewpoints and never really try to "hear" the other
person's story. Rather than really focusing on what the other person is
saying to us during an important discussion, most of us tend to be
preparing our response while the other person is talking, anxiously
awaiting our turn to talk. Effective active listening means putting
your own frame of reference on hold for the time being, and focusing
all your attention on the speaker and her or his words, mindset and
feelings. The
next time a discussion is "going nowhere", or worse yet, heading toward
escalation and seemingly irresolvable conflict, try implementing the
Active Listening process. Being listened to and understood can be a
very healing process for both the speaker and listener and contributes
to each person's holistic health and well-being. |
