Listening
Are we born with a natural ability to be great conversationalists, like Homer Simpson was endowed with an inbuilt talent for sitting on a sofa and drinking beer? Or is listening like any skill that needs understanding and practising, like playing the ukulele? The following questions are really just to get the ball rolling. There are no answers provided, partly because it’s not like with chocolate where there are clear, objective right and wrong answers. (Is chocolate good for us? Yes.) And partly because while pretending to be adopting a very flexible attitude to listening, it’s also that I’ve got the DVD set of Curb Your Enthusiasm to watch so don’t want to linger too long.
In the meantime, here are some questions, at least some of which we hope will be thought-provoking and even feeling-promoting.
In the meantime, here are some questions, at least some of which we hope will be thought-provoking and even feeling-promoting.
Setting the scene
What’s your preferred location for a heart-to-heart with a friend – seated with 8 friends at a table in the pub with Chelsea playing Uzbekistan blasting from the 40 foot plasma screen or just the two of you sitting at the end of a seaside pier?
Do you try to squeeze in conversations during ads between TV programmes?
Do you have any of the following plugged in, switched on or winking temptingly at you while you’re having a conversation – MP3 player, mobile phone, laptop, Wii…?
If you use Facebook, texting and/or email at the same time, has this ever resulted in things going awry?
Listening
Have you ever, even for a second, God forbid let your mind wander onto what you’re going to have for supper while a friend is pouring out his heart about his latest dating disaster?
How easy is it for you to concentrate on figuring out what other people are really trying to express, by considering their choice of words, tone of voice, facial expressions and body language, current situation etc?
Which do you use more often, your ‘faults and vulnerabilities in others’ radar, or you ‘hidden strengths and qualities of others’ radar?
Do any of these ring a bell? While your friend is talking:
o Are you rehearsing and refining what you’re going to say as soon as your pal stops talking? …or pauses for breath?
o Do you sometimes, wait for it……… interrupt someone? If you are fessing up to interrupting others, (and I’ve yet to meet someone who doesn’t, often by very loud body language), is this because:
o you know what they’re going to say and you’re saving them the words (rather like eating someone’s bannoffee pie for them to save them the calories.)
o you want them to see how carefully you’ve been listening by mind-readingly saying what you’ve anticipated they would say
o you want your friend to see how much you’re enjoying the conversation so you can’t wait to leap in
o you want your friend to know that you’ve had similar (but preferably more dramatic/interesting/amusing) experiences
What do you think of this concept I’ve just invented: interrupting ourselves. When we jump in to finish someone’s else’s sentence, or just to lob in our own, obviously superior sentence, we’ve interrupted our own concentration and focus.
Body language
Where do you tend to look when you are:
a. listening to someone else
b. talking to someone else
What are your own ‘give-away’ gestures, facial expressions etc?
Fairly conversing
What’s a good way of helping avoid misunderstandings, of the sitcom variety where two people think they’ve understood each other but actually have completely different interpretations of the situation?
How would you do on a lie-detector test when asked whether you tend to try to get others to adopt your views, rather than you being open to theirs?
And with a follow-up question about whether you’ve ever ‘pulled rank’ – made someone accept your view because you’re more senior or powerful than them?
If someone has really pissed you off, and you can resist the temptation to reply in kind, what can help lowering the conversational temperature?
Talking
If a friend is telling you about a problem, which do you feel more comfortable with asking questions to help them clarify what their views and feelings are or offering advice and suggestions they may not have thought of?
How do you tend to respond to someone making negative or critical comments about you?
Do you feel there are situations when it’s OK or even a good thing while out with a friend for the evening:
o to talk a lot about yourself most or all of the time
oto say almost nothing about yourself and encourage your friend to do all the talking.
You can probably remember loads of occasions where two people were ‘talking over’ each other i.e. both talking at the same time. Can this ever be ‘reasonable behaviour?
Different perspectives
What helps you to find, or even consider, different ways of looking at a difficult situation? This is possibly the most important question in the whole website! For me, the central problem when I've lost it and am in the Red Zone is that I've lost overall perspective. It doesn't occur to me that there could be any other perspectives on the situation let alone work out what these might be. This is the area focused on in the Imagine section of the website.
Feelings
Do you find it easier to tune into friends’ feelings or to follow the ‘facts’ that they’re talking about?
And then what about you also being aware of your own feelings during the conversation?
Do you sometimes (or often…) feel so overwhelmed by what someone else is saying that you tune out?
Or feel so overwhelmed by what the other person is saying that you become pretty upset?
Or feel so overwhelmed by what you are currently feeling that you can’t listen well to what the other person is saying, let alone imagine what they might be feeling?
What do we get from being listened carefully to?
· We feel noticed. A simple but exceptionally important starting point
· We feel understood
· We feel cared about and accepted, as a unique individual
· It helps to make sense of things that are happening or have happened to us
· It connects us with someone else
· It helps us build trust with the other person
Things we can do to show we’re listening to someone
· Show it with our face – looking interested, concerned, etc..
· Show it with our body – sometimes nodding our head, leaning towards the person, gently touching them on their arm
· Show it with our voice – by making those small ‘yes, I’m following what we’re saying noises’ like “uh-huh”, “hmm”, etc..
· Show it by checking we’ve understood them, e.g. by saying “Can I just check that I’ve completely got what you’re saying. Do you mean….?”
Things that show we’re not listening properly to someone
· Yawning (!)
· Looking at our watch (!!)
· Keep glancing at the TV or newspaper
· Looking around the room rather than at the person
· Keep interrupting the person, either by finishing their sentence (probably inaccurately!) or saying something else
· Talking about ourselves or someone or something else rather than responding to what the person is saying
These sorts of things make it hard to listen to people
· Distractions in the room, e.g. other people, noise from TV or radio, an uncomfortable place to sit and chat
· Distractions in our head, e.g. worrying about our kids, thinking about our next holiday, daydreaming, letting our mind wander
· Feeling pressure of work and time
· Making assumptions – especially negative ones – about what the other person is like, and not hearing what they say which conflicts with our assumptions. (This is a particularly common experience for those of us with mental illness as our credibility can be discredited before we’ve even said a word.)
· Worrying about saying the wrong thing, especially if it might upset or anger someone else. This can be very paralysing if we’re worried about saying something daft or even offensive to someone from a very different culture or lifestyle to our own.
· Rehearsing what we’re going to say rather than listening to what the other person is saying
· Having a strong personal response to what the someone is saying because of similar difficult or traumatic experiences we’ve had, e.g. a bereavement
What’s your preferred location for a heart-to-heart with a friend – seated with 8 friends at a table in the pub with Chelsea playing Uzbekistan blasting from the 40 foot plasma screen or just the two of you sitting at the end of a seaside pier?
Do you try to squeeze in conversations during ads between TV programmes?
Do you have any of the following plugged in, switched on or winking temptingly at you while you’re having a conversation – MP3 player, mobile phone, laptop, Wii…?
If you use Facebook, texting and/or email at the same time, has this ever resulted in things going awry?
Listening
Have you ever, even for a second, God forbid let your mind wander onto what you’re going to have for supper while a friend is pouring out his heart about his latest dating disaster?
How easy is it for you to concentrate on figuring out what other people are really trying to express, by considering their choice of words, tone of voice, facial expressions and body language, current situation etc?
Which do you use more often, your ‘faults and vulnerabilities in others’ radar, or you ‘hidden strengths and qualities of others’ radar?
Do any of these ring a bell? While your friend is talking:
o Are you rehearsing and refining what you’re going to say as soon as your pal stops talking? …or pauses for breath?
o Do you sometimes, wait for it……… interrupt someone? If you are fessing up to interrupting others, (and I’ve yet to meet someone who doesn’t, often by very loud body language), is this because:
o you know what they’re going to say and you’re saving them the words (rather like eating someone’s bannoffee pie for them to save them the calories.)
o you want them to see how carefully you’ve been listening by mind-readingly saying what you’ve anticipated they would say
o you want your friend to see how much you’re enjoying the conversation so you can’t wait to leap in
o you want your friend to know that you’ve had similar (but preferably more dramatic/interesting/amusing) experiences
What do you think of this concept I’ve just invented: interrupting ourselves. When we jump in to finish someone’s else’s sentence, or just to lob in our own, obviously superior sentence, we’ve interrupted our own concentration and focus.
Body language
Where do you tend to look when you are:
a. listening to someone else
b. talking to someone else
What are your own ‘give-away’ gestures, facial expressions etc?
Fairly conversing
What’s a good way of helping avoid misunderstandings, of the sitcom variety where two people think they’ve understood each other but actually have completely different interpretations of the situation?
How would you do on a lie-detector test when asked whether you tend to try to get others to adopt your views, rather than you being open to theirs?
And with a follow-up question about whether you’ve ever ‘pulled rank’ – made someone accept your view because you’re more senior or powerful than them?
If someone has really pissed you off, and you can resist the temptation to reply in kind, what can help lowering the conversational temperature?
Talking
If a friend is telling you about a problem, which do you feel more comfortable with asking questions to help them clarify what their views and feelings are or offering advice and suggestions they may not have thought of?
How do you tend to respond to someone making negative or critical comments about you?
Do you feel there are situations when it’s OK or even a good thing while out with a friend for the evening:
o to talk a lot about yourself most or all of the time
oto say almost nothing about yourself and encourage your friend to do all the talking.
You can probably remember loads of occasions where two people were ‘talking over’ each other i.e. both talking at the same time. Can this ever be ‘reasonable behaviour?
Different perspectives
What helps you to find, or even consider, different ways of looking at a difficult situation? This is possibly the most important question in the whole website! For me, the central problem when I've lost it and am in the Red Zone is that I've lost overall perspective. It doesn't occur to me that there could be any other perspectives on the situation let alone work out what these might be. This is the area focused on in the Imagine section of the website.
Feelings
Do you find it easier to tune into friends’ feelings or to follow the ‘facts’ that they’re talking about?
And then what about you also being aware of your own feelings during the conversation?
Do you sometimes (or often…) feel so overwhelmed by what someone else is saying that you tune out?
Or feel so overwhelmed by what the other person is saying that you become pretty upset?
Or feel so overwhelmed by what you are currently feeling that you can’t listen well to what the other person is saying, let alone imagine what they might be feeling?
What do we get from being listened carefully to?
· We feel noticed. A simple but exceptionally important starting point
· We feel understood
· We feel cared about and accepted, as a unique individual
· It helps to make sense of things that are happening or have happened to us
· It connects us with someone else
· It helps us build trust with the other person
Things we can do to show we’re listening to someone
· Show it with our face – looking interested, concerned, etc..
· Show it with our body – sometimes nodding our head, leaning towards the person, gently touching them on their arm
· Show it with our voice – by making those small ‘yes, I’m following what we’re saying noises’ like “uh-huh”, “hmm”, etc..
· Show it by checking we’ve understood them, e.g. by saying “Can I just check that I’ve completely got what you’re saying. Do you mean….?”
Things that show we’re not listening properly to someone
· Yawning (!)
· Looking at our watch (!!)
· Keep glancing at the TV or newspaper
· Looking around the room rather than at the person
· Keep interrupting the person, either by finishing their sentence (probably inaccurately!) or saying something else
· Talking about ourselves or someone or something else rather than responding to what the person is saying
These sorts of things make it hard to listen to people
· Distractions in the room, e.g. other people, noise from TV or radio, an uncomfortable place to sit and chat
· Distractions in our head, e.g. worrying about our kids, thinking about our next holiday, daydreaming, letting our mind wander
· Feeling pressure of work and time
· Making assumptions – especially negative ones – about what the other person is like, and not hearing what they say which conflicts with our assumptions. (This is a particularly common experience for those of us with mental illness as our credibility can be discredited before we’ve even said a word.)
· Worrying about saying the wrong thing, especially if it might upset or anger someone else. This can be very paralysing if we’re worried about saying something daft or even offensive to someone from a very different culture or lifestyle to our own.
· Rehearsing what we’re going to say rather than listening to what the other person is saying
· Having a strong personal response to what the someone is saying because of similar difficult or traumatic experiences we’ve had, e.g. a bereavement
