“One of the most sincere forms of respect is actually listening to what another has to say.” — Bryant H. McGill
I’d like to take this opportunity to sincerely thank all of the people in
our lives who give us the absolutely priceless gift of respectfully and deeply listening to us.
They draw near, take the time and look us straight in the eye. They take turns. They give us 50% of the conversation. They are the people who ask questions like “how are you, really?” and actually wait for the answer. Then they give us their full attention and refuse to be distracted by interfering interruptions. They also refrain from becoming interruptive conversation cloggers, themselves.
How do we feel when someone is listening intently?
It is such a good good feeling when people pay attention to what we are saying to them. It tells us that we matter. We are understood. When effective listening happens, we can sense that all of us are interconnected and influential. When a person listens to us, we are reminded that we too have a valid place in the world. What we think, feel and say is to be considered, deliberated and responded to. When that happens we don’t shut down. We break out of solitary confinement. Then we are better able to share our gifts and talents with the rest of the world.
How do we feel when the person we are with does not listen to what we are saying?
Insignificant. Irrelevant. Empty. Not to mention, invisible. And it seems that being surrounded by non-listeners is more common than not. It is what I have come to expect at least 80% of the time.
Not listening cuts us off from the person we are with. As non-listeners we miss out on the gifts that others offer us. In fact, everybody loses. The speaker loses a sense of validation and the non-listener loses the opportunity to choose a deeper, more intimate relationship.
We have all experienced that non-listener who seems to fall into one of the following two categories…
First, there are the people who pounce on us and insist we respond to their self-
centered agenda. They dominate the conversation and ceaselessly talk 90% of our time together–seems either desperate or narcissistic. It gets to the point where we are scared to even ask, “how are you?” That will start their long monologue that ends with them cutting us off saying, “Well, it was great talking to you,” rather than WITH you! Then, “ta-ta!” they abruptly disappear, leaving us in a heap. As hard as they may try to appear considerate, what they say often comes across as “Enough about me…now…what do YOU think of me?”
Second, there is the non-listener who, when we are about to share an important thought or feeling, drifts off after the first 20 seconds. They have no intent to listen and their lack of interest in what we have to say makes us feel devalued. Being neglected in this way can actually feel like a subtle form of abuse.
Listening is caring.
“Listening is such a simple act. It requires us to be present, and that takes practice, but we don’t have to do anything else. We don’t have to advise, or coach, or sound wise. We just have to be willing to sit there and listen.”
~ Margaret J. Wheatley
Well actually, there’s a little more. If we want to improve our relationships and become better listeners (and closer friends), it does involve consciously practicing a few important skills:
- First, we have to want to become a better listener. It requires that we have the desire, commitment and patience it takes to enter into the other person’s world of thought and feeling with openhearted acceptance. There is no room for critical condemnation at the time a person is sharing deeply personal feelings.
- It also requires deliberate focus on the other person. In the dynamic of you vs. them, this is about them. I try to focus completely without being distracted– especially by any technology we are carrying, like smart phones. Rather than spending time mentally formulating a response to what they are saying, instead it’s important to concentrate fully on what the other person is trying to fully express.
- I think in a friendship role, good listening should be a 50-50 bargain. I listen during half the conversation, and my friend listens to me during the other half. Seems fair to me, unless my friend is going through something really heavy and needs to talk more than usual.
- As a listener, I need to listen to my friend’s words and pick up on their body language at the same time.
- I need to nod in affirmation of a point my friend is making.
- I can reflect my friend’s thought back, re-phrasing it, showing them I got it.
- I also want to ask pertinent questions for clarification.
Having good listeners in our life can be an invaluable gift. And with a little intent, focus and practice we can not only strengthen our relationships, but offer that gift of listener-love to so many people.
–My sincere thanks to this article’s co-authors, Linda Wheeler Donahue, Rosalie Meyer and Susan Rasmussen.–
Any comments? Ever felt invisible?
Ever wanted to talk about living with polio, but were afraid of being tuned out?
You matter.
We’re listening very closely, waiting for your thoughts…
I learned at an early age to be this type of listener but often need to read a refresher. So many share items we need to hear and act on. Then we can really help in the way they and we need. With my cousin Kathy and others I have known they showed me how to walk with them. This Blog also allows me to learn more about walking with and not ahead.
Thank you Sunny.
Wonderfully put. It is hard to get folks to listen to us. they see me walking slower, but don’t really wait for me. When I get to the curb and set my feet just right to get down they take my arm to help. I can do it myself and the help may take me off balance. I do try to listen intently to people and I have to really concentrate with hearing not as good as it once was even with aids to help. Good Blog
I really liked Sunny’s thoughts about listening, including the importance of communicating to another person in a manner/fashion that demands their attentive ‘true’ listening. Sunny is very good at this skill–I can attest to it as a post-polio doctor first seeing & meeting her over 30 years ago!
As a doctor, I always felt it was my job/role to first listen to a patient in order to learn ‘what they wanted from me’ or ‘how I could help them’. Since rehabilitation is about restoring function and because all disabilities are different and each person having one is unique, how else could one learn what has happened to them/what they are experiencing/what they need??
I was recently reading a piece about how the Electronic Medical Record has altered the doctor-patient relationship because it makes the doctor focus so much of their attention on ‘The Record’, largely because that is the determiner of if and how much they get paid.
In one study the doctor only spent 14% of a visit in direct patient care/interaction, wheras 43% of the visit time was spent looking at a computer! Hopefully there will be a backlash by caring and reasonable doctors to counter this trend, and I think they will need the help of their patients to change the parts of “the system” and the thinking of of “the medical establishment business bureaucrats” to do so.
Another group that needs to really improve their listening skills are politicians. Ours seem to only listen to those who have big bucks to pay their campaign committees and not the majority of voters. Of course the loudest complainers always get disproportionate attention, enhanced by the media. And again, we all need to improve our skills and efforts at communicating with our representatives in a way that does get their attention.
Afterall, communication is a 2-way street.
I wrote this piece for a Polio Australia publication:
Who’s listening to whom?
Re: nature of evidence; importance of listening to the user expert
As a journalist I spent 51 years listening to people’s stories. Many were questionable, I prided myself on my own veracity. So when a series of odd pains, new overwhelming fatigue, started to hit in the late 1980s, I went through GP-prescribed tests that found nothing, ever. Persisting, I was eventually told ‘it was all in my head’. Found that insulting: most polios carry significant psychological baggage from treatment as children by doctors and nurses. Bordered on child abuse in some cases.
Typical polio survivor, I pushed on with life, running on fewer and fewer cylinders. Then an article from an American newspaper mentioned a post-polio syndrome. I followed it up but after years of silence, never talking about polio, it was also confronting.
Despite now 25 subsequent years of lobbying for federal funding, none eventuated.
We are Australia’s largest disability group, yet there are still health professionals forced to admit they know nothing about the impact and after effects of paralytic polio. Support groups have become the rare place where we listen to each other, share management advice and tell of nurses, doctors and allied professionals who have been kind enough to ask about the foot, leg, arms that clearly had been paralyzed. Many polios on being hospitalized have conducted clinics for trainee doctors and others.
Then a much-needed National Disability Insurance Scheme emerged and began sucking health funds deeply from State and Federal Budgets. Was this why we were being ignored? In trial stages, the scheme actually cuts out at the age of a majority of Australia’s polio survivors – 65. Lobbying continues to ensure that Aged Care Services are upskilled to deal with us and others turning 66.
At the personal level, my GP carefully listened to my story about PPS, then binned the material offered. He had me walk up and down the corridor insisting I get rid of the limp. It was years before he resignedly said, “well, take off your shoes, better have a look”. Showed him my flaccid, scrunched up polio foot, scrawny left leg and he finally got it.
Then I started listening to myself. The situation was worsening, the good leg seriously impaired from so many years of carrying the load. Made the effort to have a team assessment at Polio Services Victoria, two hours with physio, orthotist and OT. This led to wearing a carbon fibre GRAFO. Felt like a trussed chook, hated having a crutch. Then found the beautifully designed brace was protecting the ‘good’ hip as well as the most obviously polio affected side. Opened my eyes and ears to many new issues: access to buildings and public transport, the wonderful world of mobility scooters; the struggle to afford aids and equipment.
We are fortunate in Victoria to have not only Polio Services Victoria, but a specialist in pain management and rehab who openly admits he has learned about post polio by listening to us.
For that we are profoundly grateful.
Wow, Fran! Thank you for this important thought piece! Your story is certainly an account of listening verses non-listening. Makes me realize that effective listening can actually save and preserve our very lives in so many different ways.
Well said! Sparky’s a pro at it!
He sure is! (Sparky is the white dog above!)
I honed my listening skills when my daughters were teenagers and I needed to know what was going on in their lives – no wait, that was eavesdropping, not listening! Now that I am a grandparent, I do enjoy listening and find it much more rewarding. As far as feeling invisible, I feel that way whenever I go into a retail establishment or even a restaurant. As I have more difficulty walking, I become more invisible but it has its advantages if one wants to browse without being disturbed!
Great. Thanks for your comment here. How have you personally found that listening is more rewarding that not listening? Would be interesting to hear more of your thoughts.
I wonder if the reason that many have written books about their experiences with polio was because so many of us didn’t have a voice when we were children in hospitals. We only wanted to be heard and respected but few, if any, would listen. Now that we have to try again to be heard as our bodies give us difficulty, we know how rewarding it is when someone listens.
Very insightful comment…To build on what you say here, perhaps having a visible disability of any kind can create an ongoing sense of isolation at any age because we are different and therefore sometimes scary to others at first. That look in their eyes and funny body language can put us off as well. We have to make a big effort, energetically reaching out, to feel deeply accepted and genuinely understood in non-disabled groups of people–whether they are health care professionals or not. Going public about who we really are and what we have actually experienced–courageously opening up about life with a disability–whether writing about it or speaking publicly about it, can be so validating and helpful to us and to those who care enough to want to really understand. It takes the scary stuff away from others (and us) faster, is healing and helps us come to a greater peace and sense of wholeness. What do you think?
Sunny, what attracts me to your blog is your eternal optimism and how you rattle my complacency. I consider myself optimistic, but have difficulty with being a champion or informant for my physical challenges. My closest friends can see my decreasing mobility but still have difficulty comprehending stairs without railings or the dangers of icy sidewalks or slippery floors.
I can cite a variety of reasons or excuses for my head in the sand. I do not know anyone now in my sphere who has post polio, nor does my family physician. I have spent many years building my walls of protection and deflection and am only too happy not to talk about myself, contrary to friends who welcome my listening ear.
However, in my volunteering with people who have forms of dementia, if any group is invisible, misunderstood or not listened to, it is them. There seems to be a pecking order in the disability sphere, especially as one ages. Needing a cane, or heaven forbid hearing aids is sort of okay, needing a walker is harder and needing a mobility scooter or wheelchair is tough but losing one’s memory or social skills is the toughest.
In our North American society, we still pay lip service via funding and some legislation for persons with forms of physical or mental challenges. I am proud that my grandchildren find physical disabilities quite normal and that is my validation. I can only hope their generation will be more accepting of those of us that don’t fit the norm; that would give me peace.
These are important thoughts for many of us to ponder. Thank you!
Love this subject, Sunny. It inspires me to listen more carefully to my friends. It also inspires me to use this topic as an “ice breaker” at our next polio support group meeting.
That’s a great idea Linda! Folks are already sharing this essay with people they know…