How you do it

The way to learn listening is to experience being listened to and then to try it yourself. But while there is no substitute for the direct experience of it, it is possible to say some things about what it is and what it is not, and what is a good procedure for learning it. Listening is a way of putting our attention with another person, with what she is saying or expressing right at that moment. We do it by attending closely to what the other person says and then saying back what we hear the other person say, but no more than that. We do not give opinions, ask questions, give advice, or recount our own experiences. It is a very special kind of listening because we put our own ego, our own trips, aside. This can feel hard and strange at first but it is essential to the listening process.

Also, when we are doing listening we are not responsible for the other or for taking care of her. We are agreeing only to pay very close attention to what the talker is expressing and to say that back as clearly as we can. The one being listened to can then say whether what we said was what she meant, correct it, add to it, or go on to say something new. She is then listened to again and the process repeats itself until the talker is through or an agreed-upon stopping time is reached.

The basic purpose of listening is to make it possible for the person doing the talking to know about his own experience, to make sense out of what is going on inside himself. We all have a continual stream of experience going on inside of us, but it often takes time and a chance to be heard to find words that fit that experience and make it understandable to ourselves. Listening is therefore like two persons listening to one. The process consists of the talker trying to put just the right words to his experience, hearing them back from the listener, and then going on to find better words or new words as new parts of the experience come up, and so on, in a continuing flow of referring back to what is going on inside himself.

Finding the right words bit by bit, being listened to, finding more words, and so on, is the heart of listening. That is why the person doing the talking is in charge. The talker decides what is talked about and how much. That is also why it is important for the listener not to put her ideas into the talking, because that will have the result of making the talker pay attention to what is going on in the listener, instead of what is going on inside of himself. The listener puts her own ego and her own trips aside. The listener's only job is to say as well as she can what she is understanding the talker to be saying and feeling. And the agreement by the talker is to put his attention on, to focus, on what is going on inside of himself - what he is concerned about and feeling at that moment - and to try to understand that and express it as clearly as possible.

Listening is a place for not being perfect. It is hard to say clearly what is going on inside oneself. It usually takes a lot of back and forth, talking-listening steps before something gets said just the way it is meant. This has the result that both the talker and the listener are often somewhat confused. It is therefore important that neither blame themselves for not getting something clear or “right”. The listener only need say whatever part is understandable, perhaps with a comment that the other part was not clear. As the process goes on the meaning will be expressed more clearly and fully and that is what it is for.

Either the talker or the listener can decide when it is time for a listening response. Usually a few sentences is all that the listener can keep in mind at one time. The listener can stop the talker and say something like, " I want to respond to what you said so far. " The talker can also ask, " I would like you to say back what I have said so far. "

The listener does not have to use the exact words of the talker, but that is always all right to do. At times, they might be the best or the only words the listener has at that moment. It is important in any case to use words that stay very close to the exact meaning of what the talker says.

The listener also needs to be aware of the feelings and emotions that the talker is expressing, so that the person behind the words is heard. Our feelings and emotions are an essential part of our experience and point to the meaning that it has. Responses that ignore emotion are mechanical and not useful for the talker. It is surprising in how many ways words, tone of voice, gestures, and facial expressions communicate feelings. At first the feeling part in what the talker says may not be apparent, but it will usually become obvious after the listening-talking process has gone on for a while. In any case, saying the emotions are essential for a good listening response.