.png)
Being a good listener means having empathy. But empathy is one of the most misunderstood listening skills. Empathy is what we feel when we are trying to understand the world from the perspective of another person.
One of the common misconceptions about
empathy is that you need to have lived through what the other person has experienced
to understand them.
Simply having the same experiences as another person is not enough to understand them. Two people can face the same challenges or difficulties, but respond in completely different ways. Your experiences are unique to you and no one else can know how you feel, even if they have been wearing your shoes. The only way to understand how someone feels is to listen to them, without assuming that they feel the same as you did in that situation. So, let’s think about empathy in a different way.
Your unique perception of the world
Imagine that every baby is born
holding a wooden frame that contains a pane of glass. Whenever they look at
anything in the world, they do so through this glass.
The glass is not completely clear when
they receive it. It is slightly warped and discoloured, and these are the marks
of their genetics and biology. This means that everyone has a different piece
of glass through which to see the world. And this glass becomes more marked as
each of us moves through our lives. Every experience – good and bad - changes
the glass. It warps, scratches and smudges. Parts of it may be stained in
different colours like church windows. And so our view of the world changes as
the glass changes over time.
We do not see the world as it truly
exists. Rather we see the world through a filter created by our biology and
life experiences.
Frame of reference
Counsellors often talk about looking
through the client’s frame of reference. The pane of glass in the wooden frame
is your frame of reference.
To be a good listener, you need to
stand at the side of the speaker and try to look out at the world through their
glass.
Don’t say: “I’m sorry that your glass
is scratched.” That would be sympathy – not a bad thing in itself, but not
helpful for listening. Sympathy means that you feel sorry for the other person
and you want to reduce their suffering. This is kind, but it does not mean that
you understand their needs, feelings and experiences. You can feel sorry for
someone without actually listening to them at all.
Don’t try to clean the glass or fix
the scratches. That might help them to see more clearly, but it would be like
trying to make some of their life experiences disappear or change who they are
as a person. They earned every single mark on their glass through the life that
they lived, and no one has the right to take those away.
But don’t ignore the marks on the
glass. Ask questions about this scratch and that smudge and those colourful
stains, then listen to the answers without taking the opportunity to tell them
about your own scratches and smudges. This can be difficult because we love to
talk about ourselves. So be aware of this temptation and remember to focus on
the other person whenever you feel the urge to share.
Imagine you are talking to someone who
is terrified of giving presentations. It might not be helpful to have sympathy
(“I feel for you”) or share your own experiences (“I used to be nervous too”)
or rush in with solutions (“imagine your audience is naked”). Instead, try
asking questions about their experience of public speaking and listen to the
answers.
You might ask what thoughts go through
their head during presentations, and where those thoughts and feelings first
began. This can help you find the scratch that is changing their view of the
world. For example, their glass might have been scratched when they were
bullied in school and looking at the world through this scratched bit of glass
means that they see it filled with people who will laugh at them if they make a
mistake.
Using empathy by trying to genuinely
understand the other person means that your listening skills also help them to
better understand themselves. And understanding is the first step towards
taking charge of your own problems and finding your own solutions.
Learning to listen
As you practice trying to see the
world through the frame of reference of the person who is speaking, you will
find that you are less likely to misunderstand, less likely to rush in with
advice, and more likely to connect on a deeper level. This is how counsellors
build a therapeutic relationship.
You will know when you are building rapport through listening because you will start to genuinely want to hear and understand that person. You will stop wanting to interrupt with your own thoughts. You will stop trying to push the conversation in a certain direction to talk about your own interests or serve your own agenda. You will stop getting distracted by things around you or your internal voice. Instead, you will become immersed in the world the speaker is sharing. And this is how to be a good listener.
Fay Short
Professor, Human and Behavioural Sciences, Bangor University
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license
To see hundreds more articles click here to visit our archive