Listening To Yourself, The Key To Good Communication
Exercising listening to others is a difficult task, we always have an opinion or something that interferes between what the other wants to express and what we interpret, our prejudices, in general, are the ones who play that trick on us that makes it difficult to understand (without needing to agree) the other’s point of view.
Listen first
However, there are ways to achieve it, taking small steps that will lead to great relationships. Something concrete that can be done to listen better and avoid unnecessary discussions is: pay attention to each word that the other says and remain silent (even when what the other expresses us hurts us) and once it finishes, express our opinion of In a clear way, without attacking and slowly, for this it is very important that before responding we take a few seconds, this clarifies the ideas and how we want to express them.
Another way to listen well is to accompany the silence of the other, many times silences express more than words and even challenge us, in these cases it is advisable not to speak and to stay looking attentively into the eyes of the other and if possible with a gentle gaze and calm, expressing calm, this is the most complicated because when we are angry our body expresses it and, logically, also our gaze, so for a situation like this it is also best to take time, always in silence, to be able to regain calm .
When the situation overtakes us and the screaming begins
But there are situations in which we are totally overwhelmed and we scream, then the other one screams louder and we turn up the volume and the other one does the same, then everything gets out of hand. In these situations it is best to leave, leave the scene and when reproaches such as “you never listen to what I say” arrive, turn around, take a few seconds, regain calm (as far as possible) and respond with something like “At this moment I am not in a position to listen to you, we are arguing and I think the best thing is that we get out of this and then, calmly, talk” and take the behavior of the first proposal (listen in silence and respond later).
These exercises, so to speak, at the beginning are very difficult to achieve because in our psychology there is always the power struggle and wanting to “beat” the other, but in human relationships it is not about winning or losing but about complementing each other, about This way we can create ideas together in all fields of life, but the most important thing and what will benefit us the most is to be able to forge better relationships and get to know each other better. By always being open to the other, we can generate more trust, more freedom and more responsibility, always present in the current moment, that is, in the already known “here and now”.
In conclusion, it is always good to be attentive to what the other tells us, without losing ourselves and exercising the freedom to choose how we are going to relate, whether reactively or proactively.
