A couple stopped by last evening to have a glass of wine or three…. During their time here, it occurred to me that neither one of them were very good listeners. I won’t go into details, but if I picked up on it, I’d say it must have been pretty obvious.
A lot of our friends knew that Claire and I had a tradition of setting aside one night each month to talk to each other and to listen to each other. I am certainly not one to give advice, but if I had to make one single suggestion as to how to help virtually all relationships, it would be to become a better listener.
Without doing a lot of extensive research, I’m not sure about this, but I’d guess that men would win the prize for worst listeners. I’d bet that if you took a survey of couples that claim they have a good, loving relationship and asked them what’s the secret to their success, most of them would tell you that it’s the other person’s ability to listen that’s a major contributor to the success of their relationship.
Well, I got to wondering why more of us aren’t very good listeners. I think guys believe listening is kind of sissy stuff — they’d rather just jump right in do something — just listening seems like you’re doing nothing. But — the fact is that listening is the solution.
I know I often don’t listen to people as closely as I should, and I know how I feel when I think someone isn’t listening to me. I don’t think many of us realize just how bad we are at listening until someone tells us about it or points it out to us. Poor listening skills are kind of like a bad habit that we don’t even realize we have sometimes. We probably all need to concentrate on listening to what someone is saying rather than thinking about what we’re going to say when it’s our turn…. or, even worse, jumping in and interrupting someone.
I think our one night a month tradition of talking and listening made us both better listeners. Becoming a better listener is an art form, but it mostly just requires your intention to become a better listener — and of course a bit of practice. Speaking from personal experience, you’d be amazed at how much closer you feel to the ones your love if you just quiet down and become a better listener…..
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