How REALLY listening is the key to fulfilled relationships
In a more and more fast-pasted and dynamic environments, many of us have become so occupied with chasing our own fulfillment and successes, that we ignore the art of listening. I explicitly say “art” of listening here, as people who know it, appreciate, and talk about it like an art which is the key to establish enriching and long-lasting relationships. Rather than showing the world our muscles and actively shouting about what great people we are, we should come back to shifting our focus towards learning to listen again. But what does listen mean and how can we re-learn it?
Many people understand the need to listen. The problem is very few of us know what we mean by REALLY listening. Really listening does not mean just to sit down, look at another person and pretend to pay attention to their words addressed at us, while our mind is racing with our own thoughts at 100 miles an hour. This is NOT what is meant by active listening.
On the contrary, really listening to people means to pay full attention to what they say, to reflect on it and to show them that we are fully immersed in the conversation with them. It is all about actively and consciously paying attention to their words and gestures towards us. This requires our full attention, as we don’t only have to understand what the person opposite us says, but we must establish an emotional connection to them, by showing understanding, empathy and understanding.
To really listen, we therefore have two connect to people on two levels, one being rational and the other being emotional. Rationally, we need to understand their messages and facts they want to communicate to us. However, this is not enough to really listen. On the emotional side, we have to absorb their body language, listen to their tone of voice as well as use the skill of our emotional intelligence to establish a fulfilling conversation both on a rational and an emotional level.
So, why is this all important you might ask? Many of us ask themselves the question, why besides our best efforts, some of our relationships are never really fulfilling for us. They are more relationships of people we like to go out with, and we wonder why we still cannot fully connect to people to talk to them about what really matters to us. The answer is because we don’t fully listen. We only listen on a rational level and often straight away jump to conclusions or judgments. What we forget, is to apply the emotional level of listening. Only when both sides act together, can we really listen, and the other person will eventually fully open to us. With truly listening both rationally and emotionally, we establish trust, openness and reduce fear of the person we listen to not be values by us or misunderstood. Only this, will result in us to establish deep and truly fulfilling relationships in the long-term.
Therefore, it is important to really learn to listen again. Many thinks listening is easy, and it is if we only apply it on a rational, fast-pacing level. However, if we go deeper, we learn to see it as a skill to learn and eventually even as an art to apply. Once we master to truly listen, door will open to us that we thought were closed forever, we will feel to have relationships that really matter and others will feel they can trust us, seeing us as a true person to discuss their deepest issues and concerns with in an honest and open context. Therefore, learn to REALLY listen in order to live a life of meaningful relationships. You will realize once you mastered the art of listening but in the current climate it might take time. Eventually, you will be rewarded for going through the effort of studying the art of listening.
