Which is more frustrating? To have worked so hard on what you are going to say to someone so they fully understand you...or to realize what you said just went in their one ear, and out the other?
When I taught Professional Communications at a local university as an adjunct.....one of my job requirements was to teach students how to actively listen. Active listening doesn't come naturally. Just so you know. Before we can even begin to listen to someone else most effectively, there are any one or combination of twelve blocks that prevent us from paying full attention to what the other person is communicating. On top of these blocks to active listening being at work within each of us, we may have other issues which keep us from paying full attention (like ADHD, like a personality disorder, like the thoughts in our head we suspect are abnormal but we keep thinkin' them anyway, etc.). Is it any wonder then why we get so bent out of shape so often for feeling "disrespected" or "misunderstood" or "abused" by this general lack of mutual understanding? If nobody is really listening AND understanding what has been said, then everyone WILL feel worse than they already do....
I could present the twelve blocks to active listening here, but how about you just google it and it'll pop up for you to read on your own time. I'd rather focus on why it's so easy to NOT listen to each other in a bigger picture kind of way.
1. Lack of Respect
How is anybody going to listen to anybody else if there is just a basic lack of respect present in one's life? A fundamental lack of respect for our fellow human beings means that unless we can figure out what that other person is "good" for (for our own sakes!)...they are useless. Remember when I've posted before about "Love People and Use Things, NOT Use People and Love Things"? Well, this is about that simple truth. And guess what else? If you don't genuinely respect yourself---you will not be able to respect other people no matter how great your delusion about how these two realities are NOT connected to each other!
Ultimately, we are not objects to use and abuse each other...we are equals. Why do we keep forgetting that? Why do we listen "better" to someone we are trying to impress...rather than those we believe are trying to impress us?
If you want to check yourself on this particular issue, just look at the evidence(s) you leave behind in regards to your own listening skills and associated relationships. Have you been told by more than three people on separate occasions that you were NOT listening to them? Are you confused about your close personal relationships and why they are so (for lack of a better way of putting it!) MESSED UP? I'm telling you, this lack of respect thing is big big big! Without respect for oneself and each other---listening is just another thing we pretend to do when what we REALLY want to do is just get what we want or say what we want...when we want to!
2. Lack of Insight
Whenever I have clients who basically just don't get "it" about whatever...we call that "low insight" in the field of psychology. I've said before that everyone chooses how much truth they can stand; imagine how difficult it is to listen to and understand someone when there is a general low tolerance for learning something "new" in the general sense? To be open minded as a human being means that we first possess a spirit of humility that is open to receiving new information without harsh judgment attached. To be open minded also means being willing to learn new things that we didn't already think of ourselves.
Have you ever been in the presence of a person who, when you listened to them, was a combination of arrogance, ignorance, and belligerence? Now add to that mix this type of person telling you how to roll or what to do! I liken this lack of insight to a blind man telling his driver when to "Watch Out!" for certain road hazards.
Lack of insight means we have developed a pattern of thinking and behaving whereby we do whatever we want...it's o.k. by us...and let's convince others that how we roll is the "best" way to be and that's all there is to it. Kind of like the bumper sticker: "You are entitled to your own wrong opinion!"
We all are works in progress. We all have "new" things to learn and understand. Nobody is so smart, so together, and so "right" that we don't have to listen to anybody else but the voices inside our own heads. Just so you know...
3. Lack of Interest
Isn't it funny how we can always tell when someone else is truly uninterested in what it is we are attempting to communicate? Sometimes such a lack of interest is due a pre-existing medical and/or mental condition that requires ongoing professional intervention (think Autistic spectrum disorders, think traumatic brain injury, think untreated ADHD, think history of trauma and/or abuse). Otherwise, a lack of interest can represent a comfortable habit that allows a person to avoid personal responsibility for what he or she could be doing, but keeps choosing not to do.
Whenever I have had a client that won't or can't get past one-word responses to my initial intake questions, I suggest that we run a couple screens to rule out one or more pre-existing conditions. Typically, those who have made a bad habit out of lacking interest are the first to suddenly answer my questions more thoroughly. Like that would be a surprise right?
To lack interest is tied to lacking both respect and insight...but in ways it's worse than either. When we just don't care anymore...it's like we are recoiling from relationships generally speaking. We don't care...we lie to shut others up or placate them temporarily...and we do whatever feels good "now" according to our own timetable. In other words, we stopped really listening to others a long long time ago. I get that when past trauma and abuse has been in the picture; how would you like to be a kid screaming out "Mom! Dad! I need you to...!" and neither one ever does it? I'd learn how to lack interest in others as a result too! The tragedy here is that your present life gets screwed in the process because you are still reacting to your past by continuing to lack interest in what others have to share with you in your real life right now...
And let's face it, some people who lack interest are just lazy and that's the way they wanna be. To understand someone else is perceived as more work than cleaning up a house after a tornado. Which is another topic for another blog post.
Have a great weekend!
When I taught Professional Communications at a local university as an adjunct.....one of my job requirements was to teach students how to actively listen. Active listening doesn't come naturally. Just so you know. Before we can even begin to listen to someone else most effectively, there are any one or combination of twelve blocks that prevent us from paying full attention to what the other person is communicating. On top of these blocks to active listening being at work within each of us, we may have other issues which keep us from paying full attention (like ADHD, like a personality disorder, like the thoughts in our head we suspect are abnormal but we keep thinkin' them anyway, etc.). Is it any wonder then why we get so bent out of shape so often for feeling "disrespected" or "misunderstood" or "abused" by this general lack of mutual understanding? If nobody is really listening AND understanding what has been said, then everyone WILL feel worse than they already do....
I could present the twelve blocks to active listening here, but how about you just google it and it'll pop up for you to read on your own time. I'd rather focus on why it's so easy to NOT listen to each other in a bigger picture kind of way.
1. Lack of Respect
How is anybody going to listen to anybody else if there is just a basic lack of respect present in one's life? A fundamental lack of respect for our fellow human beings means that unless we can figure out what that other person is "good" for (for our own sakes!)...they are useless. Remember when I've posted before about "Love People and Use Things, NOT Use People and Love Things"? Well, this is about that simple truth. And guess what else? If you don't genuinely respect yourself---you will not be able to respect other people no matter how great your delusion about how these two realities are NOT connected to each other!
Ultimately, we are not objects to use and abuse each other...we are equals. Why do we keep forgetting that? Why do we listen "better" to someone we are trying to impress...rather than those we believe are trying to impress us?
If you want to check yourself on this particular issue, just look at the evidence(s) you leave behind in regards to your own listening skills and associated relationships. Have you been told by more than three people on separate occasions that you were NOT listening to them? Are you confused about your close personal relationships and why they are so (for lack of a better way of putting it!) MESSED UP? I'm telling you, this lack of respect thing is big big big! Without respect for oneself and each other---listening is just another thing we pretend to do when what we REALLY want to do is just get what we want or say what we want...when we want to!
2. Lack of Insight
Whenever I have clients who basically just don't get "it" about whatever...we call that "low insight" in the field of psychology. I've said before that everyone chooses how much truth they can stand; imagine how difficult it is to listen to and understand someone when there is a general low tolerance for learning something "new" in the general sense? To be open minded as a human being means that we first possess a spirit of humility that is open to receiving new information without harsh judgment attached. To be open minded also means being willing to learn new things that we didn't already think of ourselves.
Have you ever been in the presence of a person who, when you listened to them, was a combination of arrogance, ignorance, and belligerence? Now add to that mix this type of person telling you how to roll or what to do! I liken this lack of insight to a blind man telling his driver when to "Watch Out!" for certain road hazards.
Lack of insight means we have developed a pattern of thinking and behaving whereby we do whatever we want...it's o.k. by us...and let's convince others that how we roll is the "best" way to be and that's all there is to it. Kind of like the bumper sticker: "You are entitled to your own wrong opinion!"
We all are works in progress. We all have "new" things to learn and understand. Nobody is so smart, so together, and so "right" that we don't have to listen to anybody else but the voices inside our own heads. Just so you know...
3. Lack of Interest
Isn't it funny how we can always tell when someone else is truly uninterested in what it is we are attempting to communicate? Sometimes such a lack of interest is due a pre-existing medical and/or mental condition that requires ongoing professional intervention (think Autistic spectrum disorders, think traumatic brain injury, think untreated ADHD, think history of trauma and/or abuse). Otherwise, a lack of interest can represent a comfortable habit that allows a person to avoid personal responsibility for what he or she could be doing, but keeps choosing not to do.
Whenever I have had a client that won't or can't get past one-word responses to my initial intake questions, I suggest that we run a couple screens to rule out one or more pre-existing conditions. Typically, those who have made a bad habit out of lacking interest are the first to suddenly answer my questions more thoroughly. Like that would be a surprise right?
To lack interest is tied to lacking both respect and insight...but in ways it's worse than either. When we just don't care anymore...it's like we are recoiling from relationships generally speaking. We don't care...we lie to shut others up or placate them temporarily...and we do whatever feels good "now" according to our own timetable. In other words, we stopped really listening to others a long long time ago. I get that when past trauma and abuse has been in the picture; how would you like to be a kid screaming out "Mom! Dad! I need you to...!" and neither one ever does it? I'd learn how to lack interest in others as a result too! The tragedy here is that your present life gets screwed in the process because you are still reacting to your past by continuing to lack interest in what others have to share with you in your real life right now...
And let's face it, some people who lack interest are just lazy and that's the way they wanna be. To understand someone else is perceived as more work than cleaning up a house after a tornado. Which is another topic for another blog post.
Have a great weekend!