Are you listening or are you waiting for your turn to speak?
If you can image, we live in language like fish live in water – we are continually surrounded and totally immersed in it. How we SAY things and how we LISTEN can have a major influence on our levels of frustration.
From an Ontological perspective we regard both speaking and listening to be EQUAL parts of language.
I want you to reflect back to a moment or time in your life that you felt ‘listened to’. What was it about that space that made you feel heard?
Was it someone offering you wordy platitudes (speaking) or did they hold the space and really listen without judgement?
As a culture we are linguistically strong and the benefit of effective listening is sometimes neglected. I wanted to introduce to you the 3 A’s of listening.
ALREADY….
- Whether we like it or not we live in our stories. We all have our own personal memory bank or ‘herstory’ from our experiences in the world and we also each come from bigger stories within our cultural and historical narratives. So we already have a listening that we might not be aware of. We also engage in different social practices and all of these ‘stories’ shape how we listen.
ALWAYS…
- We are always listening. Even when you are looking at a piece of art you are listening. Your voice in your head is chatting away about whether you like the art or not. Have you ever noticed that when you are in a conversation with someone there is a full blown conversation going on in your own head simultaneously? ‘Gosh she’s put on weight, flip he’s got a high pitched voice, I’m just going to smile and put up with that comment etc etc. What about a dramatic pause in a performance – yes even in silence we are always listening.
AUTOMATIC…
- This is a biggie as so often we respond automatically especially with those closest to us without even listening. A response comes out of our mouths before we’ve actually listened to what the person has said. Have you ever thought about how your automatic listening rules or run’s you?
Another angle to look at this is to think about the qualities of a successful orator. The components of a good speech is not only about the deliverance and the illocution it’s also about the listening. When making a speech if you haven’t considered the listening/concerns of your audience, it will fall on deaf ears. A good speaker has researched, anticipated and guessed the ‘listening’ of the audience.
OPEN YOUR EYES AND SEE WHO I AM, NOT WHO YOU WANT ME TO BE?
Without attentive listening and being aware of the 3 A’s of listening how can do this?
Listening is all interpretation.
So, where exactly does your listening come from and who are you listening for?