The Art of Listening

We all know excellent listeners. They are our family members, friends and coworkers whose gentle and thoughtful presence make it easy for us to open up and share everything, including what triggers our feelings of vulnerability.

What these wonderful people in our life do naturally - being present, being open, being non-judgmental, being allowing, being patient, is something that everyone can learn to do. Or, rather than "learning", simply starting by observing what prevents us from truly listening.

When we listen to respond (or react) rather than to deeply understand another human being, it's usually because one of these aspects of our personality gets in the way of our natural presence:

• Distraction: instead of being fully engaged in the present moment, we're living the thoughts and emotions of what we experienced in the past - or we're already anticipating what might come next.
• Opinion: instead of being open and waiting for more information to arise, we're already forming an opinion and unconsciously getting attached to it.
• Assessment: we're filtering what we hear as right/wrong, like/don't like, etc. rather than letting what we hear to simply be.
• Intrusion: out of genuine desire to help and/or also sometimes out of pride, we're jumping in and giving advice - even when it's not asked for or when the timing is off.
• Impatience: we're taking control of the pace of the conversation by rushing the person talking to us, by interrupting, fidgeting or giving our input too soon.

At the root of all of these is our inability to be present; to be completely, fully engaged in the present moment.

Good listeners are usually more skilled at simply being with another person, without any agenda on how things should be and go.

When we make time and allow ourselves to plunge deeply into the present moment, we naturally become better at listening because all the other qualities already present in our being can emerge and blossom: openness, non-judgement, allowing, patience.

There is no sweeter gift than offering good listening in our personal relationships, and there is no more effective way to build mutually satisfying professional relationships than taking time to listen and understand well the person with whom we are trying to collaborate.