When Janet and I went through the greatest marriage crisis of our life, my counselor would often quote to me the lyrics of a famous Don McClean song.
“They would not listen. They did not know how.
Perhaps they’ll listen now.”
—Don McClean, Vincent [2]
Dr. Michael Semon of Relationships, Incorporated would then look at me and say, “Chris, you don’t listen. In fact, you don’t even know how to listen. But we’re going to work on that…”
Over the course of several weeks that’s exactly what we did. Miraculously, God resurrected, healed and restored our marriage. Today, good listening is something that marks our conversations and communication.
Here are eight principles we’ve learned when it comes to listening that will revolutionize your relationships.
“You must all be quick to LISTEN, slow to SPEAK, and slow to get ANGRY.”
—James 1:19 NLT
8 Simple Ways to Improve Listening
1. Eliminate distractions.
Put away your smart phone. Silence notifications. Set down your laptop. Turn off the television. Put down the book. Turn down the music. Be fully present and emotionally available.
“You cannot truly listen to anyone and do anything else at the same time.”
—M. Scott Peck
2. Activate your focus.
Focus on the person speaking. Listen with your eyes, not just ears. Make and capture eye contact. Give the person your full, undivided attention.
Get Level and Congruent
One of the most helpful skills Janet and I have learned over the last two years is for us to make certain we get “level and congruent” before we attempt to communicate. That means that we’re both sitting down — knee to knee, face to face, hopefully holding hands and looking one another in the eye before we begin. This demonstrates that we value one another. It slows down the conversation. It prevents distractions. It helps us remain calm, gentle, kind, strong and sensitive when discussing emotionally charged issues.
Getting level and congruent also helps us to place ourself in someone’s shoes. It allows us the opportunity to notice things like emotions, tone of voice, inflections, tension, stress, sadness, joy and facial expressions, so that we can respond appropriately.
“Listening is a magnetic and strange thing, a creative force. The friends who listen to us are the ones we move toward. When we are listened to, it creates us,
makes us unfold and expand.” —Karl A. Menninger
3. Subordinate your opinion.
Resist the urge to react. Don’t interrupt the person who is speaking.
We often fail when it comes to listening because instead of actually listening, we’re forming our opinion and thinking about what we want to say when the person finally stops talking. Confront your compulsion to share a clever comeback.
“Answering before listening is both stupid and rude.” —Proverbs 18:13 MSG
Several years ago I read about a sign that was in President Lyndon Johnson’s Office. It contains great insight about listening and communication.
“You ain’t learnin’ nothing’ when you’re doin’ all the talkin’.
As the kids say these days, “That’s based!”
Instead of thinking of yourself as a hammer trying to nail down your point, begin seeing yourself as a sponge wanting to soak up the insights and information the person is sharing.
Listening is more than hearing. Listening is wanting to hear.
Paul the Apostle gave us great principle for connecting in relationships in Philippians 2.
“Don’t be selfish; don’t try to impress others. Be humble, thinking of others
as better than yourselves. 4 Don’t look out only for your own interests,
but take an interest in others, too.” —Philippians 2:3-4 NLT
Sometimes a great question to ask at the beginning of a conversation to help you subordinate your opinion, especially in conversations with your spouse is:
“Do you want me to help solve the problem, or do you just need me to listen?”
4. Regulate your emotions and assumptions.
“Post this at all the intersections, dear friends: Lead with your ears, follow up with your tongue, and let anger straggle along in the rear.” —James 1:19 MSG
“You can recognize fools by the way they give full vent to their rage and let their words fly! But the wise bite their tongue and hold back all they could say.”
—Proverbs 29:11 TPT
I read some time ago, “A wife stops talking to her husband when she’s given up hope that he will be a safe place for her to share her heart.” [3]
That’s exactly what happened in our marriage. However, by putting these principles into practice, I’ve become a safe, secure and strong place where Janet can share her heart.
5. Demonstrate empathy.
Empathy is more than sympathy or feeling sorry for someone. Empathy is the ability to step into someone else’s shoes. It’s the ability to understand another person’s thoughts and feelings in a situation from their point of view, rather than your own.
One researcher and professor explained the difference between sympathy and empathy like this:
Sympathy is seeing someone in a deep hole while you remain firmly planted on higher ground and talk to them from above. It’s feeling for someone.
But empathy, on the other hand, is seeing your friend in a hole, but instead of staying on higher ground talking to them from above, you climb down into the hole to sit or stand beside them. You actually make yourself vulnerable to the pain their going through because you actually want to connect with them. Empathy is feeling with someone. [4]
Perhaps this is what Paul was getting at when he wrote:
“Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep.”
—Romans 12:15 ESV
Paul didn’t write, “Fix them. Give them lots of great advice. Or, give them a theological explanation…” He simply wrote, “Rejoice… Weep…” In other words, “Allow your emotions to appropriately match theirs…”
The great C.S. Lewis described it like this:
“Friendship … is born at the moment when one man says to another ‘What! You too? I thought that no one but myself…‘” —C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves
That’s a terrific description of what vulnerability and empathy look like. The moment someone gets real and vulnerable with us, it gives us permission and even an invitation to get real and vulnerable with them.
6. Participate with thoughtful questions and gestures.
Asking thoughtful questions is an art form. Develop the art of asking good, thoughtful, appropriate questions.
Acknowledge the person’s experience with appropriate gestures like nodding your head, smiling, holding their hand, or sincerely saying something like, “I’m so sorry…”
Invite the person continue sharing by saying something like, “Is there more?” or, “Go on…”
7. Cultivate understanding.
Several decades ago, Stephen Covey in his classic, 7 Habits of Highly Effective People challenged us to, “Seek first to understand, then to be understood.” That was Habit #5.
Business expert and prolific author, Peter Drucker once described the importance of understanding as follows: “The most important thing in communication is to hear what isn’t being said.”
The Gottman Method Couples Therapy says it like this:
“Understanding must precede advice.” —The Gottman Method
It’s so easy to give advice, even when the advice you offer isn’t really that good. Opinions are like noses. Everyone has one and they’re all different.
But the goal of communication isn’t to air your opinion or share your advice. The goal isn’t to win the argument, make your point or “be right”. The goal is always understanding.
At some point, you have to ask yourself:
Do I want to always be right or do I want to be in a vibrant, healthy relationship?
According to John Gottman, 69% of marriage problems are unsolvable. But despite what many therapists and people tell you, “…you don’t have to resolve your major marital conflicts for your marriage to thrive.” [5] The same goes for any other relationship, as well.
Every problem in a relationship doesn’t have to be solved,
but they do need to be understood.
It’s probably important for me to point out that understanding isn’t necessarily synonymous with agreement. It doesn’t mean that you agree with everything the person has said or is sharing. It simply means you’re listening with both your head and your heart, your ears and your emotions. You’re tracking with their feelings and perspective.
You can care about what a person is feeling even when you don’t necessarily agree with what they are saying.
Understanding is similar to empathy. It’s one of the greatest gifts you can give the people who matter most to you. We all need to be in a relationship where we can:
- know and be known,
- love and be loved,
- serve and be served,
- celebrate and be celebrated by someone else, and,
- weep with someone and have someone who will weep with us.
That’s understanding.
Dale Carnegie nailed it when he wrote the following:
“Any fool can criticize, condemn, and complain but it takes character and self-control to be understanding and forgiving.” —Dale Carnegie
Understanding is always the goal of great communication. Cultivate it.
8. Communicate encouragement.
Culture in a relationship is created by design or default.
Always providing encouragement and affirmation is making a decision to build the culture of your relationship by design.
“Let everything you say be good and helpful, so that your words will be an encouragement to those who hear them.” —Ephesians 4:29 NLT
“Be gracious in your speech. The goal is to bring out the best in others in a conversation, not put them down, not cut them out.” —Colossians 4:6 MSG
If you want to give those you love the gift of listening well, put these 8 principles into practice today.
- Eliminate distractions.
- Activate your focus.
- Subordinate your opinion.
- Regulate your emotions and assumptions.
- Demonstrate empathy.
- Participate with thoughtful questions and gestures.
- Cultivate understanding.
- Communicate encouragement.
We started this post with a quote by David Augsburger, we’ll wrap it up with another.
“Love is listening. Love is the opening of your life to another. Through sincere interest, simple attention, sensitive listening, compassionate understanding and honest sharing. An open ear is the only believable sign of an open heart. You learn to understand life–you learn to live–as you learn to listen.”
—David Augsburger quoted by H. Norman Wright [6]
[1] David Augsburger, Caring Enough to Hear and Be Heard: How to Hear and How to Be Heard in Equal Communication
[2] https://americansongwriter.com/the-deeper-meaning-behind-don-mcleans-american-pie-hit-vincent/
[3] Patrick, Darrin; Patrick, Amie. The Dude’s Guide to Marriage: Ten Skills Every Husband Must Develop to Love His Wife Well (p. 6). Thomas Nelson. Kindle Edition.
[4] Brene Brown, The Power of Vulnerability, https://www.ted.com/talks/brene_brown_the_power_of_vulnerability?language=en
[5] John and Julie Gottman, The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work, p 170, Kindle Edition.
[6] David Augsburger quoted by H. Norman Wright, Quiet Times for Couples