How to Support Someone You Love with Active Listening
It can make all the difference
Have there been times when you wanted to show someone you love kindness, but didn’t know how to reach them? Perhaps they were unhappy, and you sought to ease their suffering.
You felt discomfort on their behalf and anxiety tugged at your heart. Eager to ease their pain, you presented guidance, but recognized they didn’t really want or need it; they craved something else.
Yet, you did not discern how to give support in a way they could receive.
People in trouble often sincerely want practical help. If they hurt from emotional pain, however, mostly, they yearn for connection.
They feel lonely, even in a crowd or busy household. They meet many folks who tell them what to do, but few who know how to listen to them.
If you’re an awesome listener, active listening is more likely to reach the person you wish to help than your pity. Often, pity makes things worse.
It shows you want to help, but it can feel like evasion; as though you don’t want to engage with the nitty-gritty of what ails them.
People aren’t necessarily sympathetic for selfless reasons either. They mean no harm, but they feel the urge to push away other’s pain as it’s uncomfortable.
They offer reams of advice. Their motivation is to stem the sadness in the unhappy person, because they don’t want to deal with it, rather than provide actual kindness.
Genuine love doesn’t censor sadness when it arises. It allows it without judgment and listens for the heartbeat between tears.
Everybody knows when they are listened to with love and kindness; it feels different from a dialogue about how to think or act.
I learned about active listening as a counselor and discovered it’s a skill the average person doesn’t have. Sometimes it’s necessary to be shown how to listen with your eyes, ears, and heart rather than engage with snippets of what people say.
Unless someone’s taught you to listen actively, a kind parent possibly, or you’re naturally a terrific listener for a different reason, you might inadvertently do the following when people speak about their difficulties or sadness
Chime in
When you chime in, talking over someone after cutting them off mid-flow, you shut down their words to have your say. The insinuation is your ideas matter more than their feelings. As you know, when people talk over you, butting in makes you feel unimportant.
Let your mind wander
When you only half listen, your mind’s on something else. Thoughts of what’s for dinner or your own worries play in your head. Mostly, however, you’re planning what to say next.
People know you aren’t listening well because your reply isn’t quite right. You haven’t heard all the required data. As a result, they sigh inside and politely put up with circumstances and don’t come to you for support anymore.
Miss vital giveaways
As well as overlooking vital areas of a conversation when you do not listen, you miss facial expressions and other types of non-verbal communication.
People don’t always verbalize what they mean, and this makes your task as a listener difficult. That is, unless you watch their faces to see a strained smile signifying something other than their spoken words, or their watery eyes, when they say everything’s fine.
Ways active listening differs
Note your turn to speak
When somebody’s unhappy and wants to talk, the exchange needs to be about them rather than full of quips about the occasion you felt awful too.
It can help to know someone’s been through a similar situation at times. At others, though, people take over communication and make the discussion about them instead of the person who is suffering.
You’ll know if it’s your turn to talk because, having paused when the other person stopped talking — in case another sentence was coming, you gain eye contact.
If the person’s eyes are down, watch a moment to see if they carry on looking down, deep in thought as they consider what to say, or glimpse at you quizzically as their gaze says, “and you?”
Another clue it is your turn arises when the person’s last word in a sentence rises at the end, rather than trailing downward or remaining flat, meaning they want your response.
Listen with your senses (not just hearing, though)
Watch for body language. Does the individual tremble with sadness or fear? Clench their hands into fists due to anger or frustration? Say they are fine, but reveal sadness with their eyes?
Do they hunch over as though under pressure? Stutter or twitch?
Listen, not only to words, but to the pace and tone of what’s said. Anxious and angry people might speak fast and elevate their voices.
Depressed, stressed people may speak slowly; you can sense they have reduced energy.
Notice whether their voices shake, whine, or are uneven in another way, revealing they are talking about something upsetting.
What do you experience while you listen? Can you feel someone’s anger? Frustration? Sadness? Hopelessness? If so, check it out. Ask if you are right. The individual will clear up your misinterpretation or, if you are correct, bond with you. Both responses are useful.
Be patient
Many conversations are battlegrounds as people fight for airtime. Everyone wishes to speak, but no one wants to listen. Silly, huh? There’s no point to one-way communication. We may as well converse with our reflections.
When you listen well, actively and with compassion, you forgo the need to govern the exchange and direct its flow. You wait to find out which way the individual talking needs to head. Only then can they reveal their story.
You refrain from saying “I know what that’s like,” or “I understand how you feel,” or “I went through the same thing.” Rather, you respect the person’s experience as unique, so yours isn’t the same. You don’t tell them what they feel isn’t right either, thus invalidating them.
“It can’t be that bad.”
“You’ll be all right in the morning.”
“You’ll be fine.”
“Come on, smile!”
“Time heals.”
These quips undermine and gloss over pain rather than let it out. It’s more helpful to validate someone’s experience, accepting it is as they describe and, when appropriate, let them know what you think you heard them say (to check you understood their words accurately).
Active listening can help you connect with individuals in distress. It offers them the chance to reveal their emotions. Giving them space to speak aids understanding too.
Copyright © 2019 Bridget Webber. All rights reserved