Getting in the Way of Listening

Most all of us have a problem with listening. We tend to get in the way of taking in what others are saying. Our chief difficulty is this boulder of the self we put in the middle of dialogue’s two-way path. That is, we focus more on ourselves and our own reactions to what we are hearing, than on the other and what they are actually saying.

There are four major forms of self-focusing which block real listening:

First is our ubiquitous self-centeredness. We want the conversation to revolve around us. That includes the topics of conversation: we seek to steer around the subject, even abruptly, to what we want to talk about and listen to.

Some evidence what is called exaggerated self-reference. They assume others are talking about them when they are not; and they take personally what others say when it isn’t really about them.

In its extreme form, exaggerated self-reference is a characteristic of paranoia. The most humorous example of paranoid exaggerated self-reference I have heard came from a comedian on the Johnny Carson Show.

He said, “I’m so paranoid, that when I’m at a football game and the teams go into a huddle, I think they’re talking about me.”

Second is our inflated sense of self-importance. We feel that what we have to say is more important, urgent, or pertinent than what the other is saying. In our arrogance, we believe what the other is saying is insignificant if not boring.

So we find it easy and efficacious to interrupt and either end the conversation or take it in a direction different from the speaker’s intentions. The chances are we didn’t hear the other, even if we think we did.

Third is our faulty belief in our self-knowledge. We think we know what the other is going to say even before the other has said it. We believe we have “heard it all before.” That means we are really listening to our inner tapes of prior conversations, and therefore are not available to hear the novelty and newness of the feelings and sentiments being expressed. We are in effect telling the other that we know nearly as much as they do regarding what is going on inside them. Not only is that ridiculous, but it renders genuine listening to the other impossible.

Fourth is our secret self-protectiveness. Perhaps we feel more vulnerable to the other and to the information coming our way than we are willing to let on. Perhaps we do not want to change or hear something which might challenge or threaten us in any way, what we are and what we have.

This likely indicates that we have stopped growing, or at least that we are resisting facing the hidden changes going on in us. So we stubbornly refuse to take in or do what another may be asking of us.

All these difficulties aside, if you want to be a better listener, then do this:

Become fully present, for to “hear” necessitates being “here.”

Be still and know; be quiet and open up.

Get interested in the other, listening especially for newness and nuances.

Assume nothing; pretend you’ve never heard it before.

Empathize: seek to enter into the heart of the other, then to return to your own.

As you listen, think more highly of the other than yourself.

Don’t attend to your thoughts and feelings while listening, but as best you can, stay with the thoughts and feeling of the other.