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involved and make connections"those people often pretend they're listening. They may be looking at you, but they're not listening; they're just not talking. When you recognize the habit or attitude in yourself, be aware of the difference between that and real listening. Listening takes energy and requires reflective talking; retreating is a mental recess. People you're "listening" to and encouraging to continue with a slight nudge of a question ever so often will not be fooled. They may continue to carry the conversational ball along for you, but afterward they will feel let down, if not resentful. |
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Tip 435: Listen with compassion. |
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Some people listen with a superior tone, a critical spirit, or aloofness. In addition to speaking this way, they listen with the same attitude: eyebrows raised, scowling mouth, glaring eyes, folded arms, smirking lips. Such does not encourage people to open up and speak their mind. Nor does it free them to think reflectively about themselves and change the way they're acting or feeling. |
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Don't confuse compassionate listening, however, with simply giving verbal reassurances: "That's all right. You couldn't help reacting that way." "Well, don't worry about it. Things have a way of working out." "I know what you meanbosses are all alike; you can't trust them to be fair." These responses are not helpful at all. They tend to brush the listener's feelings aside and imply that he or she isn't a good judge of what's worth worry or work, what's a problem and what's not, what action to take or not take. |
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Compassionate listening provides something more than glib assurances. It empowers people because it enables them to lower their defenses, share themselves, and find their own solutions in an accepting atmosphere. |
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Tip 436: Listen for feelings as well as facts. |
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Noted clinical psychologist Carl Rogers believed strongly that a patient's healing could be greatly speeded up by the simple act of having an analyst who really cared. "If I can listen to what he tells me, if I can understand how it seems to him, if I can sense the emotional flavor which it has for him, then I will be releasing potent forces of change within him." |
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Far too many people pay an analyst for what friends should and could do if they practiced listening for emotions. Letting the other person know that you understand the emotion behind his or her words gives the satisfying sense of really being understood. |
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Tip 437: Listen for the context. |
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When we read a news story where a cousin shoots an uncle over a card game, the incident shocks us because of the enormity of the deed in |
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