If you have more conflict in your life than you want, it might be that you aren't listening, aren't really listening. While conflict is normal, due simply to a clash of differences, if you spend much time stuck in conflict it could be because of an inability to really listen.
Conflict can be an opportunity to grow, to learn about yourself and the other, if you know how to really listen. Or it can be the beginning of the end if you don't. Really listening can make your life more peaceful by making molehills out of what used to seem like mountains.
When you really listen you put yourself aside while others are speaking and become present to their separate reality. You believe that others are responsible for their own lives, and that they inherently have the wisdom to make choices for themselves. You allow yourself to be impressed upon by another's truth, hearing it's importance for them even if you don't agree with it. You take it in and seek to understand how it is they think that way. You hear their needs under their stance, needs you may have, too. You let them know what you have heard them say, checking for understanding.
"Anger is lack of understanding," says Thick Naht Hahn, the Vietnamese monk. When we really listen, we seek understanding.
It takes courage and humility to really listen to someone with whom you disagree. You may be afraid that you will have to agree with them to get along . You may have to work through your own anger. You may have to face the notion that you may be wrong.
Anger is a lack of understanding; listening deeply helps us understand. |
The failure to really listen has its costs. The Gottman Institute, which can predict with a 92% accuracy which marriages will fail, says that the main reason couples divorce is the inability of one or both people " to be impressed upon by the other." 35 separate business studies and surveys say that the primary reason businesses fail is the overall failure to listen.
Every person on the planet needs to be heard; when we are not heard we speak louder, argue, quit, become hopeless, get depressed, or sometimes become violent. We all need to be heard, and yet few of us are really listening, or know how. Only 2% of the U.S. population has ever received any formal training in listening, in spite of it's proven importance.
The benefits of really listening are far reaching. The act of really listening dissipates many conflicts. You discover that you have more in common than you knew, and that your conflict was based on assumptions and fears. Because they have been able to express themselves without your interference, the other person feels more like listening to you. You become closer to each other because you understand each other more.
Simply by doing the act of really listening you experience personal growth, more centeredness and calm, more compassion, and less conflict inside you.
Sounds a lot like peace, doesn't it? When you really listen to one another, you are contributing to world peace, one person, one mountain, at a time.
By Marcia McReynolds of Planet. She teaches people how to really listen through workshops, The Listening Cards ™, and public speaking. |
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• The Listening Place
• Pledge of Listening:
Listening should be taught in schools
• Make Molehills Out of Mountains
• Problem Solving Process
• Listening for Sustainability
• Meditations on Listening
• Depression Sign of Missed Calling
• Path to Unconditional Happiness
• Guerilla Mediation Steps
• Listening to Emotional Blocks
in the Body |
