Truly listening to someone, without cutting them off
In many conversations, each person waits for their turn to speak, preparing their answer while the other is talking. Truly listening has become rare. This quest invites you to a challenge: listen to someone all the way through, without interrupting, without giving advice, simply to understand.
What it looks like in your day
Choose a conversation from your day: with a colleague, a loved one, a child, a neighbor. Here is what truly listening means:
- Let sentences be finished. Even when you have understood, even when you want to add your own experience.
- Keep your phone out of sight. Looking at it, even for a second, tells the other person that they come second.
- Ask open questions. "And how did you experience it?" "What was the hardest part?"
- Rephrase. "If I understand correctly, you feel..." That shows you have heard, and clears up misunderstandings.
- Resist the advice reflex. Often the person is not asking for a solution: they want to be heard.
- Put up with silences. A pause sometimes lets what really matters rise to the surface.
The aim is not to pull off a technique, it is to give someone something rare: your complete attention. This quality of listening is one of the loveliest forms of love.
If you are in a hurry, apply it in one five-minute conversation only. If you are shy, this is a challenge within your reach: you don't have to talk much. If you are rather talkative, this is your exercise: count to two before answering.
At the end of the day, note what you learned from this person: a piece of information, an emotion, a story you didn't know.
What the Bible says
The book of Proverbs is direct:
“He that answereth a matter before he heareth it, it is folly and shame unto him.”
Answering before listening is called folly. And another verse speaks of the thoughts of the heart as deep water, which only a man of understanding knows how to draw out (Proverbs 20:5): listening takes patience.
Jesus himself is a great listener. On the road to Emmaus, before explaining anything, he asks:
“And he said unto them, What manner of communications are these that ye have one to another, as ye walk, and are sad?”
He already knows everything, but he asks the question and lets the disciples tell it. He gives them the floor before giving them his own. It is a lesson: the one who knows the most doesn't necessarily speak first.
Pitfalls to avoid
Listening in order to answer. If you prepare your reply while the other is speaking, you are not listening. Try to stay entirely with what they are saying.
Using listening as a conversion technique. It would be false to listen to someone only to find an opening to talk about Jesus afterward. True listening seeks nothing: it honors the person.
Pretending to understand. "I know exactly how you feel" is rarely true. Prefer: "I don't know what it's like for you, but I want to understand."
Listening without limits. If someone pours out their distress repeatedly, you can listen to them with love and invite them to seek suitable help too (a loved one, a professional). You don't have to carry everything alone.
Judging yourself when you slip. You will sometimes interrupt. Simply apologize: "Sorry, I cut you off. Go on."
Today, choose one conversation. Listen without cutting in, then note what you discovered about the other person.