Learning to Listen

Confession time: I'm not a good listener.

I don't always hear people when they talk to me. If I am reading or writing, spoken words become background noises. If they do stir me out of my mind space, my thoughts evaporate like a dream. And I find that annoying.

But, more disturbing to me - I've discovered that I'm also a poor listener when I want to listen well, when I want to empathize with what people are saying.

Recently, for example, I told a friend about the problem my kids were having with mice in their apartments.

I would move immediately, I told my friend. I couldn't spend one night in an apartment where there were mice.

But how do they feel? my friend replied. Does it bother them?

Well, it would bother me.

Yes, but does it bother them...?

I had to admit, I hadn't bothered asking!

So I went back and asked, and discovered - to my amazement - it was really no big deal. The situation was annoying, of course, but not serious enough to make them move.

So, how can I learn to listen - and really hear - what people are saying? I ask Terry, who, for many years was a "professional listener" in his social work job.

Well, first, you have to put your own feelings and reactions aside and find out how the other person is feeling, he replied. People will sense it if your own feelings are preventing you from hearing what they are trying to say.

Hmmm. After so many years of telling students what to do as a teacher, I now have to learn to listen!

So I have a new goal! When people share what is happening in their lives, I'm going to try to discover (in my friend's words) How they feel... (Not how I would feel!)

I know it won't be easy. (Old habits are hard to break.) But I may - in the process - end up saving myself wasted worry... about situations that would bother me far more than they apparently are bothering someone else.