Ever feel like you're speaking, but no one's truly listening? You're not alone. I'm Jim Cunningham, and on the latest Unscripted Mind podcast, we're unpacking the art of listening—a cornerstone of connection so often neglected that its absence can be mistaken for indifference. It's a conversation that promises to equip you with the insights and tools necessary to not only hear but also to be heard, ensuring that you walk away with a newfound appreciation for the power of empathetic communication.
In our deep dive into the intricacies of interaction, we confront the common barriers that thwart our ability to fully engage with those around us. From the allure of incessant problem-solving to the comfort of shallow exchanges, I shed light on the invisible hurdles that keep us from truly tuning in. With a blend of candor and expertise, I lay out a three-pronged strategy for refining listening skills and responding with genuine empathy, accompanied by five actionable steps that promise to transform your conversations, alleviate stress, and forge more meaningful bonds in every facet of your life. Join us and take the first step towards nurturing the connections that matter the most.
The goal of The UnScripted Mind Podcast is to give you fresh perspectives, practical insights and tools you can use to give you more choices, self-awareness and control of your feelings, reactions and behaviors.
Ever feel like you're speaking, but no one's truly listening? You're not alone. I'm Jim Cunningham, and on the latest Unscripted Mind podcast, we're unpacking the art of listening—a cornerstone of connection so often neglected that its absence can be mistaken for indifference. It's a conversation that promises to equip you with the insights and tools necessary to not only hear but also to be heard, ensuring that you walk away with a newfound appreciation for the power of empathetic communication.
In our deep dive into the intricacies of interaction, we confront the common barriers that thwart our ability to fully engage with those around us. From the allure of incessant problem-solving to the comfort of shallow exchanges, I shed light on the invisible hurdles that keep us from truly tuning in. With a blend of candor and expertise, I lay out a three-pronged strategy for refining listening skills and responding with genuine empathy, accompanied by five actionable steps that promise to transform your conversations, alleviate stress, and forge more meaningful bonds in every facet of your life. Join us and take the first step towards nurturing the connections that matter the most.
The goal of The UnScripted Mind Podcast is to give you fresh perspectives, practical insights and tools you can use to give you more choices, self-awareness and control of your feelings, reactions and behaviors.
Jim Cunningham:
David Augsburger once said, being heard is so close to being loved that for the average person, they are almost indistinguishable. We assume listening and communicating with others is a simple thing maybe for some, but for many it isn't anything but intuitive. Today, on the Unscripted Mind, I'll address the things that make communication difficult and what we can do to listen better, and give you five tangible things you can do to improve how well you listen. Welcome to the Unscripted Mind podcast, where our goal is to give you fresh perspectives, practical insights and tools you can use to give you more choices, increase your awareness and have better control of your feelings, reactions and behaviors. My name is Jim Cunningham and I'm a licensed professional counselor, and today we're going to discuss the one thing that you can do to improve relationships, feel more connected with others and reduce a ton of stress on yourself. That one thing is effective listening. I can't begin to tell you how many clients have asked how to better connect with their co-workers, kids, parents, spouses, other people in their lives, but I also have an equal number that report quote never feeling heard, and of those who have reported never feeling heard, I haven't met one who wasn't pretty pissed off about it. It's a very common problem on both sides of the fence the hearing and the being heard.
Jim Cunningham:
Today we'll focus on the hearing. Again, this is a very challenging problem for many, many people, especially if the topic is emotional or deeply personal. It's not something that comes naturally to most of us. So to tackle this problem, there's kind of a three-pronged approach I'm looking at. The first thing is what are the things that get in the way of effective listening? The second part is how do we just listen better? And then the third part is how do we just listen better? And then the third part is how do we respond better? As somebody once said, once I know better, I can do better. So what are some of the ways that are? What are some of the problems that get in the way of effective listening? Well, first of all, I think number one we may not be interested in what people have to say, and as much as we're interested in telling them what we want them to hear. I'll say that again we are not as interested in what people have to say as much as we are interested in telling them what we want them to hear. This is particularly true with parents and children. The second thing that gets in the way is fear and anxiety. We're often too concerned about our role in the conversation and the other person becomes secondary or sometimes just forgotten. The third one I would say is pressure. We feel pressure or responsibility to fix something instead of just enjoying the conversation. The fourth thing that gets in the way is, honestly, our comfort levels. They won't allow it. It's uncomfortable to see someone crying or hurting or in need. Sometimes it's just overwhelming for some people. The fifth thing is it's just easier not to.
Jim Cunningham:
Frankly, it's more simple just to keep the conversation superficial. We can duck and dodge and we can change the topic. We can distract ourselves by talking about tangential things. Now, most of these things are not things we are actively aware of. The fact that I am distracted, the fact that I'm not comfortable, I'm just not interested in the conversation. Sometimes it seems that simple, but I think there's a lot of other things going on sometimes for us that we may not be aware of.
Jim Cunningham:
It's always good to kind of just pause and kind of understand that, Maybe ask a few questions of yourself about what is it that's making this conversation difficult and why is it hard for me to pay attention? So listening, like most things is a skill that needs to be practiced. Often just removing some of the obstacles is enough, and here are some things to remember when you're listening. So this is kind of the second part here. I think if you try a couple of these things, automatically things will get easier for you and you'll feel a lot less stress and pressure as the listener. So the first thing I would say take a deep breath, relax and just listen. Never forget that letting someone talk is therapeutic in and of itself. There's nothing you need to do to add to it. I can't tell you how many clients have shown up in my office and just gotten stuff out emotionally, saying things they've never said before getting things out of their head Again, nothing you can do to add to that. In and of itself it is very therapeutic. So take a deep breath, relax and just listen and enjoy the story.
Jim Cunningham:
The second thing I would say is it's not your job to fix everybody's problems. Sometimes I like to start the conversation by asking do you need my help fixing something or do you just want me to listen? That way we get all our cards on the table and I kind of know what my role is in the conversation Never a bad thing to ask. The third thing is clear your mind. Stop thinking about what you need to say and just listen. If I'm so preoccupied coming up with a response something clever, something, some kind of segue I miss the story and I can't respond very authentically. I would also suggest deleting all platitudes and cliches from your mind. Immerse yourself in the story and let the responses be genuine and heartfelt. The last thing people want to hear when they're telling you, especially a very personal or emotional story, is some platitude about. Well, you know, everything works out for the best, not really helpful, it's just a space filler, and usually that we'll talk more about this, right Is? It's more about my level of comfort than the actual person that I'm listening to.
Jim Cunningham:
You need to remember that emotions such as crying are natural and therapeutic in and of themselves. Also, you don't need to do anything to that. It is just a person kind of working through their things. When you analyze tears, you find that the tears that come from when you hurt yourself physically mostly saline, salt water, tears that come during stress because of emotional reasons tend to have a lot of stress hormones in them. So it is therapeutic just to let people cry. Nothing again. Nothing you have to do to fix that.
Jim Cunningham:
Another thing I would suggest, when you're listening, is to remember that silence is golden. It always has been. You don't have to fill every second with noise. Ten seconds of silence and sitting there with a thought or an emotion can be an amazing thing. Silence and sitting there with a thought or an emotion can be an amazing thing. Rachel Naomi Remen once said" perhaps the most important thing we ever give each other is our attention. A loving silence often has far more power to heal and to connect than most well-intentioned words. So sitting in silence is a beautiful thing and you know what. It's a pretty easy thing to do. A little bit uncomfortable. I might suggest, if it's that hard for you to sit there and not say anything. Count to 10 in your head. Slowly It'll give your brain something to do instead of focusing on what you're not saying. And finally, to be a good listener. I might suggest being aware to not make it about you when we get into uncomfortable conversations sometimes.
Jim Cunningham:
I want to introduce a nice segue way . I want to tell one of my own stories, personal anecdotes that might lend to it. Ultimately, what I'm doing is changing the subject to something a little more comfortable, something that it's easier for me to sit with. Don't do that, just listen. The one thing all these points have in common is that they're about us, not the person to whom we're listening. They're often about our own comfort levels and what we feel we can emotionally tolerate. Once you take the pressure off yourself, you can relax and you can just be there for somebody else and show up authentically. I think you will find the less you do, the more benefits you will see, both from the person you're listening to and for yourself. You'll enjoy the conversation a lot more.
Jim Cunningham:
This takes us into the third element of this three-pronged approach. After we have successfully listened, what do we do then? How do we engage the other person meaningfully? So here's five ideas on how to respond more authentically in conversations, and I think first and foremost is you need to be curious. No-transcript people respond better. They get it. Sometimes this takes a moment to consider the question, but people tend to pick up on that authenticity.
Jim Cunningham:
In many conversations, we tend to ask our loved ones, especially our children, questions we already know the answers to, and that causes a problem, because if we already know the answer, well then why listen? Right, I've already got my response generated. So, for example, what is the goal in asking your child why didn't you do your homework? This, of course, is a no-win scenario, especially for the kid. No answer is going to be satisfactory for you either. So is the question really to understand why the work wasn't done? Of course not. It's a springboard to give me, the parent, the high ground. To pontificate on all the merits of time management, to impart some good life lessons prioritization, the value of off the cliff, would you Well? That didn't work for me either, and as adults we still might be stuck in some of the ineffective communication loops that we had and we learned from our parents. In fact, the older I get, the more I sound like my parents and the more phrases that kind of materialize out of nowhere.
Jim Cunningham:
Here's the underlying theme about listening to someone, though you need to be curious. Be curious about the person, the topic, the event, the emotions, the relationship. When we're curious, we're authentic and others pick up on that. That leads to the next point Listen to understand, not refute or respond. Remain open to whatever the answer is. Don't anticipate. Have you ever met anyone who finished your sentences for you? Did you feel heard? Because half the time the help is incorrect.
Jim Cunningham:
The third thing I might suggest is ask open-ended questions. These are the questions that can't be answered with a simple yes or no. They invite more content. So instead of asking, did you have fun at the park, you might say tell me about the park today or what was the best thing about the park today. That invites a lot more curiosity into the conversation and really ask the person to share more.
Jim Cunningham:
Number four is don't ask why questions, especially with kids. But none of us enjoy a why question. This almost immediately puts you on the defensive and, frankly, comes across as condescending, because when I hear why did you X, Y or Z? I automatically have to defend myself. That really kind of shuts down a conversation, so not a good way to respond. Finally, if you really feel stuck and you're just in that conversation, you're like I don't know what to say to that.
Jim Cunningham:
There's a thing called mirroring, right, we all have these mirror neurons in our brain where you find that people kind of get synced up in conversations when they're really connected. We can kind of force that a little bit, though, and use that to our advantage. If someone says something like, I've just had a really, really terrible day and you don't know what to say. You can just choose one of those words and repeat it back in the form of a question. So all you would have to say is a really tough day and people, amazingly, will just keep talking. They feel heard because you've repeated the word back to them. It's their words and it also shows a little bit of curiosity that you want to know a little bit more about that. So I think that's an important thing to kind of remember when we when, like why are we trying to engage people? I think the goal is really to give others the space and the opportunity to talk about themselves, to be heard and understood.
Jim Cunningham:
Now, this is not an always, not always an easy thing to do. As we've said, it takes intentionality and work to understand other people's perspectives and points of view, but it almost always guarantees a connection with anyone. So, again, the underlying theme here is to be curious. When we're curious, we can start listening, to understand, not refute or to respond. We throw in a few open-ended questions, not refute or to respond. We throw in a few open-ended questions, not yes or no, but more content driven. We don't ask why questions, because again, that puts people on the defensive. And finally, we can do some mirroring. We can reflect back a couple of words, say back a couple of words that the speaker has used to again prompt them to talk more.
Jim Cunningham:
I would encourage you to try just a couple of these ideas and see if you don't notice a difference on how you feel and how others respond. I know there's a lot of other ideas out there. I would love to get some feedback from you on what things work for you to connect with other people. What things don't work is also a great learning point as well. Leave us a comment, happy to check those out and share with other people. Thanks for joining me, have an amazing day and we'll catch you next time on the Unscripted Mind.