Local Voices: When it Comes to Listening, the Eyes Have It

Are you ever talking to someone and it seems that they just don’t hear you?  They didn't understand a word you said. It is as if you spoke in a foreign language.

It has happened to me to. I used to wonder what was wrong with them?  I made myself quite clear. Are they deaf?  No, not even blind. What is it they didn’t understand? There were many conversations that went no where. Maybe that is when texting started, who knows?

Then I learned, it wasn’t about me and it wasn’t about them. Neither of us knew how to communicate with one another. We could talk, we could listen, we could interrupt. What we didn’t know was how each person is unique and how as individuals we perceive things differently. 

I might be more a visually directed person. You may feel things stronger than I do and then there is someone who hears what is being said. This is just a few of the senses we use to process what we see, hear and feel. We use all of them, however, we favor one over another.

Remember, we have five senses. Are we using them to full advantage?

These are some of the tools I acquired when I took the Neuro Linguistic Programming courses in the 1990s:

By listening more attentively you can learn how a person processes and change your delivery to make yourself more clearly understood. For example, Do you hear what I am saying? Yeah, I get the picture.

Listening attentively also means watching your speaker. It’s all in the eyes.  The eyes have it. The eyes tell you if they are seeing it, feeling it, or maybe hearing it.   

Try it, next time watch your speaker, you might enjoy it. You decide.