Communication Matters: Why Can’t you just listen to me?

By Jeyanthy Siva

Communication has two aspects, there is speaking and there is listening. Today, I want to talk about listening, specifically, empathic listening – the art of hearing what is in the heart of another person, in the Nonviolent Communication way.

But first, why? Its a difficult thing to do – to really give our attention and our presence to someone takes focus, energy and effort. So why do it? What is the benefit of making this effort? (If you want to share a story about your experience of listening or being listened to, please comment on our blog or send an email through the contact button on our website).

When I was in my early 20s, I came across an essay by a woman called Brenda Ueland, on the topic of listening that had a big impact on me. Her belief was that listening was powerful, that it was healing and that it was transformative. In her essay, “The Art of Listening”, she says: “”Listening is… a creative force. Think how the friends that really listen to us are the ones we move toward, and we want to sit in their  radius as though it did us good… This is the reason: When we are listened to, it creates us, makes us unfold and expand. Ideas actually begin to grow within us and come to life.”

Wow, so much power in the simple act of listening. At this time in my life when I first read Ms. Ueland’s article, I thought of myself as a “good listener” and perhaps I was at times. But when someone said things that I disagreed with or things that I had judgments about, I would lose my ability to listen and would start to express my disagreement or at least, pull away in my heart mind and stop being able to listen well. And if the person was saying things that were not of interest to me, I would tune out and day dream or interrupt or distract in some way.

As I came to recognize the gift that good listening can be to people, I wanted to be a caring friend and a good person, so I tried to practice being a “good listener”. How to do this? Listening meant not speaking, right? So, if someone said something I didn’t agree with, I tried to suppress my disagreement and keep silent. At least out loud I didn’t say anything. Of course inside my mind, the thoughts and the disagreeing kept going. Another advise about how to be a good listener was “don’t judge the other person”, so when I had judgmental thoughts come up in my mind, I would suppress it or try to get around it in my mind somehow. And this didn’t work either since all the effort to suppress my reactions and judgments made it so I was no longer present with the person speaking. Even if I was putting on a good show of being silent, or even nodding my head periodically and saying “ah ha” in between pauses, the other person could tell that I was not really there.

That was because, this wasn’t really listening, this was just looking on the outside like I was listening. When I am so occupied with my reactions and judgments and didn’t know what to do with them, I wasn’t present to the other person (nor to myself) and my heart-mind wasn’t open to receive the other person.

So what do we do if we want to be good listeners? I will get to that but first, some…

More things we do instead of Empathic listening

Instead of empathy, we tend instead to have a strong urge to give advice or reassurance or to explain our own position or stance.  At times, we make an attempt to fix the situation the other person is speaking about, especially if its something painful for them. Or we try to cheer up the sufferer and relieve their distress.  At other times, we try to give sympathy, or to console, or sometimes tell stories of our experiences which are similar to what the person is sharing. Usually, we do everything but just be present and listen to the other person.

So before talking about how to listen well, lets look at what it means to listen well and why its so hard to do.

Don’t just do something, Stand there! (Or perhaps, Sit there)

Listening is primarily about being present, aware, empty of thoughts, open (to self, to others, to the Universe). Its not a “doing” so much as a state of “being”. It can be said to be a kind of energy (or energetic state) which we can draw upon to connect with other beings. In NVC, we call this “empathy” or “empathic listening” or “empathic presence”.

When we genuinely offer empathy we are coming from a place of connection to ourselves, and acceptance and openness to whatever is happening with the other person. Even if the other person is in pain or suffering, if we are in empathy, we are not trying to fix them or take away their pain, but instead being present with them and their pain – being a compassionate witness. This takes a kind of profound trust in human beings capacity to bear pain and also a trust in the healing power of presence… trusting that our job isn’t to DO anything but to BE with the other person. In fact, it requires trusting that being present and being with a person might be the greatest gift one human being can give to another.

Expressing sympathy, feeling sorry for them, trying to fix the situation (alleviate their pain) , reassuring them that things will get better, or telling a story to shift the focus are all strategies to avoid the uncertainty, vulnerability and nakedness of just being present for another person.

True empathy requires being in a state of open wonder, or what Buddhist teaching calls being in the “don’t know” mind. We listen, take in, reflect back and, in the end, trust that there is nothing to do or fix, that just being there fully for another person is enough.

Being Present with self; Being Present with another person

Of course, in order to be present with another person, first I need to be able to be present with myself. In order to have compassion for another person, I need to have compassion for myself. In order to not run away from another persons suffering or pain, I need to learn not to run away from my own. Here is where the practice of learning how to listen begins. As I am out of space today, I will continue this topic in next weeks column. Starting with how to listen to ourselves and be our own best friend.

This is a column on Nonviolent Communication (NVC), also known as compassionate communication. NVC shows a path, a step by step process, of how to go from disconnection and violence to connection, compassionate understanding and cooperation – with ourselves, the people around us and the world we live in.

(For information on NVC trainings in Sri Lanka, visit www.sandhi.org. Since each week’s column is building on the previous week, if you would like to read previous ones or to post comments or questions about the content of the columns, go to the blog set up for this purpose: http://sandhisl.wordpress.com/)