Are you listening?

Have you ever told someone you LOVE them and the word LOVE just didn't seem like enough to explain the true feeling? We need a new word to explain the depth of it!

That's how I feel about the word LISTEN! We need a new word to describe the depth that it entails.

Active listening is so much more than just tuning in with your ears to hear what someone is saying. People communicate with eachother more through body language than verbal language. In fact 93% of our communication is without words.

So just think about this for a minute! If you are having a conversation with someone and not paying attention to their body language, actions, facial expression etc., only listening to their words...you are only getting 7% of what they are trying to communicate to you. Add this little fact to the mix.....when we are in a conversation with someone we tend to spend the time that we are supposed to be listening; just hearing as we concoct our response, or often, rebuttal to what they are saying.

So now how much have we listened? Maybe 1% listening, 6% hearing and 93% ignoring.

What about people who do not use words to communicate? Are we missing all of their
communication? Do we take the time to talk to them? DO we pay attention to the 100% non-verbal communication they are sharing?

Humans, by nature, want to be right. We are in constant pursuit of our knowledge being validated and people agreeing with us or changing their opinions to match ours. We hold our own values highly and often forget it's ok for others to have different values than ours. We lose a tonne of learning in this process. Let's be honest, there are millions of people in this world and it is impossible for only one of us to be correct about everything. Everyone has valuable knowledge they have gained from life experience to share with others.

I have caught myself watching tv or on my phone as someone was talking to me and yes I have "heard" them but did I listen respectfully? NOPE! Have you ever been on the phone with someone who is clearly preoccupied with another activity or cell phone conversation via text? Annoying! It leaves you feeling very ignored and unimportant. We are so busy that we often rush through conversations as we move on to the next task and we never come back to consider what we heard. It is the same as having a conversation face to face and the person you are communicating responds by telling you why you are wrong about your opinion instead of trying to build on your thoughts thereby creating a mutual learning experience.

What if we ventured to calm our brains, lives and our egos long enough in conversation to really take time to consider what people are saying and showing us and take learning from it? What if we took the time to ensure that all of our communciation was intentional and useful? Wouldn't it be nice to have all of your communications considered by others?

Now I am not suggesting that we ignore our own thoughts so that we can absorb others thoughts and change our opinions. I am suggesting that we truly listen with our eyes, ears and hearts to what people are telling us. I am suggesting that we hold off on thinking about our response until we have absorbed everything that is being communciated and then respond in a useful way that communciates useful information for all to walk away with learning and character development. I am suggesting that we keep our values and egos in check long enough to consider others!

There is nothing wrong with sharing your opinion. Doing it in a way that supports learning and has the intention to help people grow is just so much more useful. Too often I see people take offense to others not agreeing with them or not changing their opinions based on the information presented as though they are of course RIGHT! I have seen people ridicule others becasue they do not agree with their opinions. There is so much wasted energy in this. Don't communicate to be right, communicate to share and learn. Share your knowledge and LISTEN to others knowledge. Take the opportunity to really stop, listen to all forms of communication and make choices to accomodate your learning. You might just find that you grow and gain more knowledge than you expected. Relatonships may improve, you might feel more content, fulfilled, useful and appreciated. We all have our own life learning that has led us to value different things, respect that and consider what others are sharing.

Next time you are in a conversation will you hear or will you LISTEN?
"Listen with the intent to understand" Linda Kahn