How to be a good listener
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How to be a good listener
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Re: How to be a good listener
#2In my experience the less judgement I bring to a situation, the better I will be able to listen. If someone is telling me a story where I feel like they were morally wrong or where “one easy trick” would have solved their problem, it is very hard for me to not want to blurt out advice, admonishment, or shut the conversation down.
The funny thing is that being quickly opinionated is highly valued in tech, so my maladaptive behavior (in part) got me accolades and promotions. I actually think this tendency to have a hot take on everything immediately is a large portion of why engineers rub non-engineers the wrong way
Re: How to be a good listener
#3In my experience the less judgement I bring to a situation, the better I will be able to listen. If someone is telling me a story where I feel like they were morally wrong or where “one easy trick” would have solved their problem, it is very hard for me to not want to blurt out advice, admonishment, or shut the conversation down. The funny thing is that being quickly opinionated is highly valued in tech, so my malada…
This is the same reason engineers rub engineers the wrong way. Its true for all humans.
Re: How to be a good listener
#4> What a different world we’d live in if more boys felt safe sharing feelings, in their own way, right from the start.
What if it turned out to be a world much worse than what we have? There is perhaps some evolutionary advantage to people that suck it up and carry on?
Re: How to be a good listener
#5> What a different world we’d live in if more boys felt safe sharing feelings, in their own way, right from the start. What if it turned out to be a world much worse than what we have? There is perhaps some evolutionary advantage to people that suck it up and carry on?
Could you expand on this argument more? My first reaction was negative ("Why would the world be worse if more people felt safe sharing their feelings??") so I would like to hear more and challenge my assumptions.
For my part, I'll point to research that suppressing emotions increases risk of suicide[1] and that many more men die from suicide than women[2]. I'm willing to hear out an argument that the world would be worse if these tragic deaths hadn't happened but it requires extraordinary evidence and argumentation IMO.
Re: How to be a good listener
#6> What a different world we’d live in if more boys felt safe sharing feelings, in their own way, right from the start. What if it turned out to be a world much worse than what we have? There is perhaps some evolutionary advantage to people that suck it up and carry on?
It's not so much the folks who suck it up and carry on, though they might be doing themselves a long-term disservice; it's the ones who project it outwards that are doing most of the harm in the world. Boys and girls, of course.
Re: How to be a good listener
#7As someone who went out of their way and studied being a good listener, none of these are wrong, but I don't see it as being the best way of learning how to be a good listener.
Reading about how to be a good listener can only get someone so far - watching someone demonstrate it and talking about it is the surest way to understand what it means.
Specifically, Reflective listening[1], Clean language[2], and the approach used by Eugene Gendlin[3], jump-started my own skill of practicing being a good listener. You may also hear the term "holding space" as a sort of umbrella term for this as well.
You would be amazing at how far these go toward creating a safe, non-judgemental, space for people. Simple, open-ended, genuine questions worded in their own language, has afforded me the opportunity to hear people open up from the very bottom of their souls. It's absolutely amazing that the simple act of listening can do that, but it does.
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reflective_listening
2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clean_language
3. Wiki reference, but best seen, of course, on Youtube https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugene_Gendlin
Re: How to be a good listener
#8> What a different world we’d live in if more boys felt safe sharing feelings, in their own way, right from the start. What if it turned out to be a world much worse than what we have? There is perhaps some evolutionary advantage to people that suck it up and carry on?
Could you expand on this argument more? My first reaction was negative ("Why would the world be worse if more people felt safe sharing their feelings??") so I would like to hear more and challenge my assumptions. For my part, I'll point to research that suppressing emotions increases risk of suicide[1] and that many more men die from suicide than women[2]. I'm willing to hear out an argument that the world would be w…
(Since we're discussing counterfactuals and could-have-beens)
In a macabre way, maybe suicidal ideation due to suppressed emotions is nature's way of managing male populations? What if men stopped killing themselves because they felt safe sharing their feelings? What if that led to testosterone fueled "musth" rages where men started to go on rampages just to let off steam? That world would be worse for everyone involved.
Re: How to be a good listener
#9Earlier quoted context omitted.
Could you expand on this argument more? My first reaction was negative ("Why would the world be worse if more people felt safe sharing their feelings??") so I would like to hear more and challenge my assumptions. For my part, I'll point to research that suppressing emotions increases risk of suicide[1] and that many more men die from suicide than women[2]. I'm willing to hear out an argument that the world would be w…
(Since we're discussing counterfactuals and could-have-beens) In a macabre way, maybe suicidal ideation due to suppressed emotions is nature's way of managing male populations? What if men stopped killing themselves because they felt safe sharing their feelings? What if that led to testosterone fueled "musth" rages where men started to go on rampages just to let off steam? That world would be worse for everyone invol…
I don't think that to be the case testosterone fuelled raging is an effect of suppressed emotions. Imo sharing of feelings would lead to more soft, feminine personalities which is the direction we are slowly heading towards.
Re: How to be a good listener
#10As someone who went out of their way and studied being a good listener, none of these are wrong, but I don't see it as being the best way of learning how to be a good listener. Reading about how to be a good listener can only get someone so far - watching someone demonstrate it and talking about it is the surest way to understand what it means. Specifically, Reflective listening[1], Clean language[2], and the approac…
> watching someone demonstrate it and talking about it is the surest way to understand what it means
Do you happen to have links to any example videos demonstrating this or are you referring to in person examples