I’m taking part in an online Workshop on Communications (more info here), and today’s session was about Listening. They listed a bunch of prompts:
Who comes to mind when you think of a great listener?
How many great listeners are there in your life?
When was the last time you felt really listened to? How would you describe that time?
How about a time when you did not feel listened to? When was it? What was it like?
What about the last time you were a great listener for someone else? When was that? What was it like? How did the other person feel? How did you feel?
How would you describe someone who is a great listener?
Reading the questions from top to bottom, I ended up thinking: “For someone who is sure she has a lot of good listeners in her life, I sure keep a long tab on the times I wasn’t feeling listened to.”
In other words, though we don’t think about it often, other people’s ability to listen affects us greatly.
I think listening is an act because it takes time and intention to do well. Great listeners seem to give so much of themselves in a conversation, yet a lot of that comes off nonverbally. They just appeared to be present, which I think is a testament to their intention to be present.
What’s more, great listeners always seem like they can continue being present, like they’re not going anywhere anytime soon. I mean, I can sustain my attention on one thing intently, but when it’s time for the next thing, I can feel myself mentally checking out.
So here lies my biggest dilemma about listening. During the best conversations in your life, there’s always that feeling that time stopped. I want to create great conversations, I do, and I believe I can be intentional and present and willful in respecting the particular person or the particular story in front of me. But I don’t always have the luxury of time to give those stories the full attention they are demanding. I want to respect them, but I also want to respect the next engagement. This might sounds like a trivial thing (“you mean you can’t listen well because you have a meeting to catch?”) but isn’t the whole point of listening to be there for others? Who’s to say that this conversation deserves more attention than the next one? How do we know when to stop listening?
Tika Anindya 