Reviewed Date: March 4th, 2022
When was the last time you were truly engaged in a conversation and lost sense of time? Or when was the last time you felt another person understood your perspective and you felt heard? If you are thinking, it means you had fewer meaningful conversations recently.
We humans rarely listen. For the most part, we just read the monologue, forgetting there is a person in front of us. During a conversation, we check phones, look at distant things, and patiently wait for our turn to speak rather than actively listening to what the other person is saying.
Our lack of attentiveness while listening could be traced back to experiences we had during childhood. In other words, attachment styles. If a child grew up with attentive parents and caregivers, he/she would be more attentive while listening. But with inattentive parents, he/she would be anxious about relationships and constantly try to grab attention. (More of this in next post)
Though there are numerous books on listening, they don’t teach you how to listen but rather how to act like you are listening (nodding, mimicking gestures). Listening is more like a mindset than a skill. To be a good listener, one needs to adopt a mindset that everyone can offer something to the conversation.
No one is boring; everything depends on what questions you ask and how interested you are in knowing about the person. Unless something is significant to someone, he/she doesn’t bring that up in a conversation. Try to understand their emotions and feelings. So that other person feels they have been heard.
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