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The common denominator of people blocks the flow of the offered listening, even before starting the conversation.
Have you ever before starting a conversation with someone, either because another person wants to ask you for advice, because you had a fight with your partner and want to talk about what happened, or because you want to have a moment of reflection with your children… wondered:
Am I willing to listen?
Do I have the energy to carry out this conversation?
Does the context help?
Do I have anything else important to take care of at this time?
Can I dedicate 100% of my presence to you?
Sure, I don’t think so… I didn’t either. I had conversations as one more item in my agenda and click fact, it was over.
Not to mention the way I had them, my shield was always in position, in front of me. Let’s see if the other guy gets deflected by a dart and hits me right where it hurts… there, in the heart.
This can lead to 4 other topics that I would like to discuss with you, but first let’s understand how we can listen and explain ourselves better.
Context
This is the first step, if you answered the above questions and you really believe you have the desire and the time, you can start creating the context for that conversation to flow better.
For example: In Argentina, to prepare the ideal context would be to put the kettle on, prepare the mate, buy some biscuits and set up the table/area where you can have some mates while the conversation takes place. This can vary by wine, picnic, tapas, or simply a good chair and a blanket… It will depend on the uses and customs of the people involved in the situation, as well as their individual needs.
Effective Listening
Now that the context is set, it’s time to start the conversation.
The most important thing at this point is that both of you feel that you are LISTENED TO. How do I make sure that this happens? By asking the necessary questions, asking them to repeat what we don’t quite understand, asking for examples, etc.
Here it is very important that we stay away from adjectives and generalities, because this can lead to the message not being concrete and clear.
For example:
X: “I would like you to be nicer to me”.
Y: But I am nice to you! — NO
What Y should have answered first is the reflection of what he heard. Yes, this is crucial when we speak in order to understand each other. Because it makes evident what we perceive from the other, what the tone produces in us, what the subtitle awakens in us, how the body is used, etc… Because when we communicate it is not only our words that matter (which can also be misused and communicate something completely different), it is a whole… And within that whole there is also the other person receiving that message, with their own expectations, ideas, emotions and feelings. So, to make sure I really listened and understood, I can start my answer by saying: “Let me see if I understood correctly, are you trying to tell me that you are sad or angry because I am not nice?
X: No, what I meant to say is… (we keep repeating the step until the reflection is what was meant).
X: Yes.
The next thing Y would have to do is to start asking, What does being nice mean to you? What would I have to do to make you feel that I am being nice? What have I done to make you think I am not?
Asking these kinds of questions helps us to get out of the adjective only and helps us to understand what the other person means when he/she says “nice”. Yes, not for everyone an adjective has the same meaning. The meaning is set by me based on my own life path.
X: For me, being good means that you do nice things for me, and you always forget the things that interest me. NO
This is another extremely important part at this point, not to generalize -using always, never, sometimes, etc.- The message when it is not concrete and uses adjectives and generalities, gets lost in the subjectivities of the receiver, awakens the feeling of attack, as if he were at risk and begins to feel the need to defend him/herself instead of explaining him/herself. Thus, generating a judgment of reason instead of a conversation to understand each other.
What X could have answered is, for me that you are good is that you remember that I like to have coffee for breakfast or that I am interested in reading philosophy. Since you make tea in the morning and have never given me a book as a gift, it seems to me that you are not as good as I would like you to be. From now on, I would like you to make me coffee and give me a philosophy book for my birthday.
Clear, concrete and ends with the third step.
Clear Orders
When we are practicing effective listening, it is about people at the end of each interaction — speaking, listening and confirming that they have been understood — making clear requests.
This may be because the listener feels the need to know what he/she can do to change the situation or because the one communicating needs a change. Either way, it has to be clear, and by clear I mean that you should not ask “I want you to make me happy”… Remember NO adjectives.
As X said in the example above-”I would like you to make me coffee and give me a philosophy book for my birthday from now on”-it is most explanatory, because you have to know what you specifically need from the other to make a clear request.
Agreements
After the clear request comes the last step of this effective listening. The agreement… As you practice listening, you will realize how difficult it is to put it into practice and maintain it.
Just because the other party makes a clear request does not mean that it has to be done, on the contrary, I invite you to make sure that neither party feels obliged to give in for the other or to agree to everything that is asked of them.
This is a special moment for discussion, for each of the parties to express what they think of the request, for example, following the X and Y case:
After the order, Y could ask these questions -Are you sure that if I do what you ask me to do, you will stop thinking that I am not that good? Do you expect me to make you coffee every day? Wouldn’t you like to receive something else on your birthday?
I understand that you need this to feel that I am nicer to you, but it seems to me that if I do what you are asking me to do, I will feel that I am not free to express how important you are to me. I don’t think I can maintain it in time.
On the other hand, it may also happen that you are comfortable with the order and agree on that.
The effective listening is a long process, which requires effort and dedication. But I wanted to explain very briefly each stage, so that if you want, you can use it with your partners, friends, family, etc. It also has an enormous benefit for work relationships.
In the continuation of this article, I will talk more in detail about this and its sequel: How to honor agreements, because there is a lot to talk about.
Conclusion
1- Work on yourself.
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Yes, you will never avoid this part, you have to work on yourself. It is very necessary, both for effective listening (because you have to communicate clearly what you want/need) and for your evolutionary process in general.
- We are going to talk about that in one of my next articles where I will quote philosopher Ken Wilber and write in detail about evolutionary processes and how our whole world around us is connected to each other.
Returning to the focus, if you don’t look into yourself, it can lead to the point that you don’t know what is wrong with you or how to deal with a conversation. Have you seen children when they are in their first years that everything is a tantrum? Well, like that, but among adults they act out in order not to face their affective responsibilities.
Even so, many people are not used to being really listened to, so when they are, they don’t know how to react. Anyway, it is a good exercise for them because they can really receive interesting questions or lead them to that moment of check in which you feel vulnerable for not perceiving that you have the right or expected answer. If we are listened to, we will also communicate differently, with more sincere and deeper words. We will no longer want to answer what we think they want to hear, on the contrary. Because everything is frequency, energy, waves… I also dispose myself according to what is around me, to how it makes me feel, if I feel judged or not, and if I am given the place.
2- Vulnerability is part of a healthy bond.
If you want to form bonds of understanding and love, you have to be willing to let go of the feeling of control and/or power (which is a fantasy). We need more relationships where we don’t experience being conditioned and have to analyze our next actions. But first, I have to go back to the previous point and work on myself. Because if you are your own persecutor, you will reflect it in all your conversations and relationships.
3- If it’s a healthy bond, he’s not going to use anything to hurt you.
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We often confuse vulnerability with weakness, and this is not the case. On the contrary, I believe it is the other way around. Showing vulnerability in order to maintain a bond is one of the most loving acts -of your own and others- that someone can demonstrate. While another person may exercise use of power to another who is being vulnerable, it’s not that way. This is where it relates to the term healthy bonding. If your environment is on the same evolutionary page as you, it will not use it against you, it will be able to awaken empathy or compassion for what you are sharing/communicating and will use that to understand it better.
4- This is not a war, nor a trial.
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Following the thread of bonds and vulnerability, starting from the fact that the other may do something “against” you or feel that you want to be right… You are already standing on the wrong side of the street. No one wins in a conversation if at least one of the two parties did not understand what the other wanted to communicate.
When we talk about what we feel, perceive or want… There is no right or wrong… There is no I am right or you are right… There is no black and white.
Is it more important to win the argument — leaving both parties with the idea that, in the end, neither of them felt validated — than to win over the ego and try to understand each other from love?
This reminded me of a question a professor asked me at university… Would you rather be right or happy?
And you, what do you prefer?
I’ll leave you with that question, while I go write the next article on living things and links.
-Love you-
GS
PS: I am also learning to converse.