Is anyone listening? Yes!

How many of you are like me and don’t always really listen to what others are saying? While someone else is talking we are often formulating our response. It can be a rebuttal of something they said or an approval or a story we just thought of….whatever. The point is we are not really listening.

When my children were little I learned a skill called “active listening.” It has to do with repeating in some way what a person said. For example if I said “I would like to go to the beach today” you might respond “you are thinking about us going to the beach?”

This kind of listening lets the person know that they have truly been heard. I did it so much with my children that they started saying “you’re doing that thing again!” It did work though most of the time. I was able to get a clearer idea of what was going on in their minds.

I read something recently that said that this is a technique used by the FBI and that they call it mirroring.

It has occurred to me that being really heard is one of the reasons that the Word Press community is so compelling. By reading one an another’s thoughts carefully we are able to respond to the true thoughts of another. There is no question that we hear or that we are also heard. Reading the thoughts, problems, victories, joys and sorrows give us the ability to really absorb what has been said and respond.

That’s what makes this community so precious.

And try using mirroring or active listening and see what happens.