Walking Rabia at lakeside allows me the opportunity to meet a lot of people. A conversation with another dog-walker this week, reminded me of something that is often immediately noticeable about people. It has to do with whether they listen as well as talk.
We probably all know people who just talk, and even when they are not talking they are not listening. It’s written all over someone’s face if they are not listening, and all over their body too. There is very little eye contact and their head is moving, or conversely, their stare is fixed too intently on yours and their smile is a little too big for a little too long. Shifting, fidgeting, tapping, playing with something — all indications someone is not listening. You may think you are having a conversation but when you say something in response to whatever they said, the next thing they say has nothing to do with your response. It is as if you never said anything.
With some people not listening seems almost congenital. It may come from a family culture in which no one listened, or it could simply be a bad habit picked up along the way. But no one listens or listens well all of the time. Things happen in the course of a day and infuse us with angst, anxiety, anger, sorrow or even excitement. It is difficult to stop on a dime and put such things aside in order to listen.
A church I served once had its monthly board meeting on Monday after work. I can’t think of a worse time to have a meeting. People coming from work on a Monday are filled with unresolved emotions and circling thoughts. I initiated a practice of having hors d’oeuvres while doing a go-around in which people had a few minutes to talk about their day. Thirty to forty minutes later people were ready to focus on the business at hand and were far more effective and efficient as a result. (Another benefit was that we got to know one another better).
There was a brief article in the New York Times recently with a headline that caught my eye: “When Someone You Love Is Upset, Ask This One Question.” The author referenced a conversation with her sister who is a special education teacher. “’What do you do when a kid is emotionally overwhelmed?’ I asked. Many teachers at her school, she told me, ask students a simple question: ‘Do you want to be helped, heard or hugged?’” (Jancee Dunn, NYT 4/7/23).
Sometimes people don’t want to talk, a simple hug will make the space they need. But even when listening, what kind of listening do they want? Do they need for us to simply listen so that they feel heard, or for us to help with problem-solving — two radically different modes of listening. There are times all of us get stuck inside ourselves with the issues of life on spin-cycle. “Do you want to be helped, heard, or hugged,” could short-circuit the spinning and create space for us to become present with one another in a shared moment. Give it a try next time you feel someone is not truly listening, but then be ready to listen yourself.
Rabia isn’t a very good listener, unless I have a treat. Then she is all ears.
Good morning, Cam,
More than I can say, I love being connected all the way to Geneva through SP. Thanks for a sweet start to the day. Karen
So lovely to hear from you — you were just on my mind yesterday! Glad we could meet like this.
Loved this one…such a good reminder, especially for those of us who think we are good listeners, when maybe we aren’t.
I hear you…:). It’s going back a few years but my memory of you is someone who could listen well.
Your post was part of my Google newsfeed this morning. I read it nodding my head at times, like when I read no one listens or listens well all of the time. True enough! I also read several parts with a bit of curiosity, like the statement that when someone is not listening it is “all over their face and body.” While there are certainly some behaviors that suggest a person is “not listening” (or not doing it well), the idea that our bodies tell the whole story is actually a myth of listening I have tried to dispel in my research. Most of us have learned about listening from doing it (and not well as your post suggests) or by reading tings we find on the internet, some of which may be valid and helpful. The model of “competent listening” I prefer suggests that our habits of listening serve us most of the time and also place barriers to our most effective listening. Learning to listen better means increasing Listening Intelligence which beings with self awareness, moves to attempting to understand how others prefer to listen, and then adjusting our own listening and speaking to fit the demands of the situation. I’d enjoy chatting about this model and whether it seems useful for the kind of listener you’d like to be.
Fascinating. Indeed, lots of good research on listening going on and I appreciate your adding to the conversation.
Cam – I can’t imagine anyone reading this piece of yours without a face appearing – or maybe more than one. Listening as a companion to other language facilities reminds (me) of reading with its purposes of (a) skimming and (b) scanning – each for the sake of knowledge retrieval. The first, (a) skimming, is the sort of listening you’ve described where the eyes have glossed (a.k.a. “MEGO,”) and their processing achieves a general idea. As an admitted “geezer” these days, I find myself emerging from conversations – phone calls are a great place for this – only being able to report (e.g., to my wife) that the call was about his/her aches and pains; and my contributions were of the same ilk, with only my own expressions of examples being recalled. In reading, one can skim for what practitioners dub names like “the main idea.” Which is rather a silly term, given the fact that real-live writers care little about writing with a paragraph devoted to a “main idea.” I suspect writers produce based upon what suits their topic – and of course their style. I would submit that “main idea” is only an invention of folks who author test items. And finally, there’s (b), “scanning.” In the business of reading, we scan a page to find specific information that will suit our purpose; such as finding a bit of trivia, or some fact that has left our memory – again useful during the “geezer years.” Such an example, actually rather recently, happened when I failed to recall the middle name of Lincoln’s assassin. Scanning retrieved “Wilkes.” Imagine a machine scanning a test for the properly darkened balloon on a student’s “scan sheet.” Completing the analogy (a task around which I excel – NOT) – you’re now thinking, “thank you, Baby Jesus – there is a God” – we listeners scan the other speaker’s noise for a topic that “tickles our interests,” or of equal value, a topic for which we have an opinion – or what’s better yet: a topic upon which we can offer facts; even our dearly-held “alternative” ones.
Whew, that his a nerve. I like your analogies. I feel as though I have much greater ability to focus and concentrate on someone’s face and their words than I do text. It has always been so. Though when it comes to poetry it helps me greatly to read it. Lots to think about here. Thanks.
Your piece reminded me of something that struck me as I read it years ago, attributed to Ambrose Bierce. It went something like this: “A conversation is a vocal competition in which the one who is catching his breath is called a listener.” In my copy of Bierce’s collected writings, his “The Devil’s Dictionary” has this entry: CONVERSATION:, n. A fair for the display of the minor mental commodities, each exhibitor being too intent on the arrangement of his own wares to observe those of his neighbor.
Thanks for the reminder.
Wow, Ambrose was indeed devilish. Thank you for joining this “conversation” — in which there is necessarily sufficient time in between comments that reflection and thought are almost certain to take place.