How to listen so your partner feels heard, seen & understood (Part 2 of 3)
From my experience so far I would like to clarify some tricky aspects when it comes to active listening skills.
Because they are so easy to confuse with the “good” ones, I would like to call them False Friends (FF).
The FF’s are the things we do out of love and friendship, because we want so much to help the person in front of us to get out of her misery. They come from our deepest and genuine desire to help someone in need. So that’s why so many people find it very difficult to accept it, when I tell them about the FF’s.
In order to be a better communicator, you should apply the principles of active listening in all the areas of your life.
However, due to the high emotional involvement, the areas where this is most needed and most difficult to apply in the same time, is of course the area of couple and parent – child relationships.
To be more specific especially when our partner or child is going through a rough time or is just exposing something that puts him or her in a place of vulnerability.
To make things even simpler I will illustrate them using a recent personal story, where, because of my prior understanding of the FF’s in active listening I was able to handle things without extra unnecessary drama and any resentments. It was tough and challenging though, don’t let Yourself be fooled by the way I will share it here 🙂
The 4 Tips & 4 False Friends of Active Listening
The night before this happened I had a dream that reminded me of something very painful from my childhood. I wanted to write it so I would not forget it, but until then I thought it would be a good idea to share it with one of my flatmates.
I started sharing the dream and as I went along I also told him about the connections with that painful memory from my childhood. All of a sudden it was not just about the dream, I was transported in a very vulnerable space where all I needed was someone to listen and encourage me to talk.
He is usually a very good listener. However, this time, he jumped in to manifest his support and to give me advice before I had finished my story.
Tip#1: Listen all the way, until your partner has finished talking.
FF#1: Interrupt with the intention to help.
Any interruption, during this stage, is doing nothing but harm. While the person is still exposing herself, she is in a very tender and vulnerable space. Any given help will do more harm than good now.
That’s what happened to me. I felt his intervention as invasive, and I felt like he was not really listening to me. So I told him: “when you do this, I feel unseen and like you are not really listening to me”.
That gave him the occasion to start listening and to offer me the space I needed in that particular moment. This way I could go on with my story and then get to the part where I needed advice and back and forth conversation.
Tip#2: Use the magic words: Aha, Uhum, OK, And…?, I see…, I hear You, And then…? to encourage the other to keep talking and to reassure them of your presence.
FF#2: Interrupt with the intention to make the other feel better in an instant by :
– minimising the whole thing (oh, come on, it’s not that bad what happened...)
– adding what happened to You (let me tell You what happened to Me when....)
We do these FF ‘s because we can’t stand to see the other in such great pain and we think that if we minimise or bring in a personal story it will make the other feel better. Well, guess what? It doesn’t. It actually makes them feel not listened, unseen, ignored, unimportant…and so on.
Add body language that suggests you're listening and receiving: tilted head, eye contact, arms open. This normally happens naturally when You are really listening.
I am telling You this just to give you a heads up, in case you surprise yourself crossing your arms or legs, for example.
So that was it for today.
I'll let you practice these two and in the next post I'll share the other two tips and tricks for becoming a better listener and communicator in all your relationships.
image source Unsplash
This post is part of an article originally published on BeingRaluca
I'm a psychologist, intuitive coach, blogger and vlogger. You can find me mainly on my blog at www. beingraluca.com where I write about communication, relationships, listening and sexuality. Here on Steemit you may stay updated by following me @raluca.
Lovely post Raluca and so true. My wife always keeps telling me I interrupt before she has concluded what she was saying. Now following
Thank you for the feedback @ianstrat, happy to hear you found it useful :)
Oh..can interruption be made to clarify something before continuing the other person's story?
My suggestion is that if they are still in the emotional, vulnerable point of sharing it's best to let them continue without interrupting. You could make a mental note to ask for clarification if you still need one once they finished. It might be the case that they don't have the clarity at that moment and by talking and sharing they can get to it later.
Thank you..this have bothered me a lot as i tend to do that. It helps to understand but yes, better not interrupt. Cheers!
you're most welcome, cheers! :)
I have found that, with my GF, the only way we are able to genuinely hear each other with out projecting one's own agenda, story, wounding - is to set the intention to go and sit together for (30)mins - and then, I need a pen and pad to note what's inpmortant for me to respond to or inquire about when she's done, as my recall sucks. She on the other hand remembers everyfuckingthing!!! But this way, we get to remain equanimous and find connection, rather than revert to the usual old patterns!
Nik, thanks for sharing what works for you in terms of communication with your GF. As long as you too are able to not fall in the old, wounded, toxic patterns, it's awesome. Congrats to both of you for creating your rituals for genuine connection and sharing the hard things.
As for she remembering everything, that's how our female brains are wired, not much we can do about it :))))
I know, I know - that's why I'm taking notes!!!