Accurate Listening

Accurate listening includes hearing what the other means as well as says. To know what something means to another requires that you do at least two things. First, without assuming, you must ask the other questions to ascertain what the other has said means to them. Secondly, you must develop a history of dialogue with that person to enable you to grasp the typical contexts of meaning from which that person speaks. Both of these tasks require time and attention, something too few of us are willing to give to another, even a loved one.

If it is true that many of us live lives of quiet desperation, it may well be due to no one taking sufficient time to truly hear what we mean as well as say. To listen is to love; and to love necessitates adequate listening. Hallmark cards’ historical motto is: “When you care enough to send the very best.” Just so, you are truly loved when someone cares enough to listen long and well to you.

Women tend to be more effective in intimate relationships because they are more willing to take the time to listen for and learn what another really means and the feelings behind the words. Men are more likely to take things at face value, to say what they mean and mean what they say and assume others act much the same way.

We so rarely probe into the meaning for another of what they have said. In my years as a counselor, it was essential that I did so most every day, with every client. I needed to hear not only what the other said, but what the words meant to that person. To miss the latter is to miss the person.

One productive process for learning what something means to another is called “going over and coming back.” As the other is talking, you attempt to become self-forgetful; instead of focusing on how what the other is saying affects you, you identify with that person as fully as you are able. You attempt to stand in that person’s shoes, so to say. You seek to feel the other’s feelings and think the other’s thoughts right along with them, as if it is something of a shared experience. You ask questions to test out whether you are in sync with the other, whether you are accurately thinking and feeling along with that person. Such a process may seem tiring, but it can actually be quite the opposite. Such seeming sharing can be energy producing even more than energy depleting.

If you should succeed, if you receive positive feedback from the other that yes, you have truly heard what that person said and really meant, you will find it most rewarding. And the other will find it most satisfying. And who among us does not wish to be fully heard and understood?

After the “going over” you need to attend to the “coming back.” To come back means to begin to listen not to the other but to yourself. Do for yourself what you just did for the other: listen to what you think and feel about what the other said and meant. Then if possible, share with the other your reaction to what the other has said. Give that person an equal opportunity to listen to you.

Listening to yourself is as important as listening to another. It turns out your ability to listen to yourself is closely connected to your ability to listen to others.