by admin in Events | 15 Comments
The Art of Generous Listening
Presenters: Marlene & Bob Neufeld
Talk Nice! Listen Well! and don’t be scare to say it all. For individuals, couples, friends & families.
Two people seeking to build a life together face a vast array of challenges and difficulties. Many people are frustrated in their relationships. Partners who often love each other do not know how to handle the inevitable couple tensions and conflicts. more…
Communication is the life blood in the creating, maintaining and growth of couple relationships. Communication is that circulation within the couple relationship that brings necessary oxygen. nutrients, healing medication, and love to the development of a couple. As well, communication is that flow that eliminates poisons, wastes, and hurt so that a couple can live healthily. Without communication, a couple would fall into silence, wither away and die.
More importantly, conversation fulfills one of our most important emotional needs, the need to know and be known. Please talk: I want to know you. Please listen: I want you to know me. Communication is more than a sharing of information; it is the way people reach out and touch each other the most. Therefore, communication is very much a human, symbolic connecting, a social affair and the sharing ourselves with others. Intimate communication is, at its core, the intent to love.
Communication is, at the same time, a learned behaviour, a basic life skill, and an art form. Communication is learned; it has a family of origin history, and we have had years of practice communicating as we had learned within our family of origin, be that for better or worse. We each have our communication styles and our idiosyncracies today. Communication is so common that we all think we know what we are doing and we are convinced that we know how to communicate. Too often we think that communication comes naturally. After all, we have been doing it since the day we were born. At the same time, it is probably one of the main reasons cited for couple breakdown and a premier area of concentration and skills practiced in therapy. Yet, good communication is an art form, and as such, there are prescriptions to its implementation and mastery to the steps of its dance.
My wife keeps repeating what she says. I heard her the first time. I hate it that she has to say the same thing over and over. I tune her out when she does that. Do you have any ideas how to stop it.
Dear Ernie, how glad we are that you asked this question. It is one that we hear often.
The first thing to tell yourself is that if your wife is repeating herself and saying the same thing over and over, then it is probably her perception that you haven’t really heard her with any sense of generosity. Generous listening implies that you have cultivated an attitude of curiosity and wonder, that you have stopped whatever else you were doing and focused on what your wife is really saying, and that you have set the intention to find out something new.
Instead, you may be doing what many of us do instead of listening generously. You may be problem solving, telling your own story, giving advice, judging, offering a rebuttal, or trying to placate and avoid conflict. None of these give you person who is speaking the sense of being heard.
Generous listening is a skill that isn’t taught in most of our schools or our homes. It can, however, be learned. We wish you all the best as you explore how you could really listen instead of tuning her out.
I really wish my husband would listen to me like you suggest. He always tunes me out, just like Ernie said. I try and try to tell him what I want and he never acknowledges that I have a point. One example is the cat litter box. It may seem like a small thing, but he always waits too long to empty it. I’ve told him over and over that it needs to be done more than once a week, and he never listens. I’m really tired of trying to get him to listen.
Hello, Janet, we understand your frustration about communication. When we hear words like “always” and “never” they are red flags for us; indicating that there are some big feelings being expressed. They are also usually not 100% accurate, and therefore can cloud the issue. The person hearing them wants to argue with them, focusing on the exceptions, for example, the times when they didn’t tune you out or when they did acknowledge that you had a point. Then, instead of getting to the point of what you are saying, you are arguing about it’s accuracy, and about who is right and who is wrong. When you are arguing about accuracy or about who is right and who is wrong, you are unlikely to really hear each other with any sense of generosity or wonder.
The point we hear you saying is that even with small things like emptying the litter box, you don’t have a clear agreement on how often it is done. Having fuzzy agreements is one of the problems with unclear communication.
On Oct. 30, we will be providing you with step-by-step ways to communicate in ways that don’t provoke an argument. We hope to see you then.
I am excited that there is a blog to ask therapist questions about counselling issues. My question is also about communication. How do I handle my wife’s body language? When I want to talk to her and raise some issues, I can just see her anger and frustration, and I shut up. Are we allowed to be blindfolded when we talk?
Joe
Hello, Joe, we laughed out loud at the image of you blindfolding yourself so you wouldn’t get “triggered” by her body language.
But seriously, there are two issues here: how you respond to her body language and how you respond to her anger. These are two different questions.
With body language, we find it most helpful to describe objectively what we see and then acknowledge our own perceptions and “stories” about what we are seeing. One of our client’s called it “triangle eyebrows”. Whenever, he saw his wife’s “triangle eyebrows” he would assume she was angry. When he started learning to name what he was seeing and then clarify his perceptions, they both realized that the facial expression sometimes meant other things other than anger; like confusion, or fear.
On the other hand, you may be accurate about her anger. In that case, we would encourage you to learn to listen generously to her anger. As we said to Ernie (above) generous listening implies an attitude of curiosity and wonder. If you were able to listen generously to her anger and frustration, you might learn something new that would help both of you.
Come to our talk on Oct. 30 and we’ll tell you more about generous listening.
HI, Marlene and Bob, I am finding your comments helpful. But I want to know what you think about little white lies or just not telling your husband things. Isn’t it often better just not to say things, especially if it will upset your husband? My mother always told me if you can’t say something good, don’t say anything. I don’t want to rock the boat.
Hello, Latisha, not rocking the boat may work with people you don’t want to be very close to. However, if you want to have a truly intimate relationship with your husband (or anyone else, for that matter) you have to risk telling them everything. Revealing generates intimacy and understanding, and increases the ability to be present. Concealing wastes energy. Revealing reduces inner mind chatter and creates safety (you don’t have to remember whether you’ve told them or not).
When we withhold relevant expressions, we withdraw energetic connection and participation from the other person, group or the world. From this non-participation place, our view of events becomes distorted, and we generate an inaccurate story/projection or attitude about the person, group or the world. We ascribe something to them that actually belongs to us. Then that person doesn’t look or seem safe to us and we have good reasons to withhold more. This pattern is cyclical.
Of course, there are better ways to reveal and not so good ways. Come to our presentation on Friday night and you’ll learn some of the helpful ways to reveal things you’ve been withholding.
Hi Marlene and Bob,
That was a great presentation last night! I really enjoyed it and went home feeling energized.
Thank you both!
Judy
my partner Julie treats me like a traditional housewife. You’d think that in a same-sex couple we wouldn’t get stuck in gender roles; but it still happens. Yesterday, I asked what she wanted for lunch, expecting that we would make it together. She told me she wanted pasta, and sat on the couch and joked with my brother, while I was expected to make it. I was furious and we’ve been fighting about it ever since. Please help!
Hi, Sylvie, thanks for posting this common problem. It sounds like Julie heard that you were offering. You heard her request for pasta as a demand that you make it and also took it as a personal attack. It probably triggered old wounds from the past. If you were communicating in an unarguable way, you could say, “I notice that I was expecting you to make lunch with me, and I am aware that my jaw and shoulders are tight. I feel angry. This reminds me of the past when my brothers weren’t expected to help with household tasks and my mother and I did it all. I’m making up a story that you are treating me like a traditional housewife. I request that you help me making lunch.”
This follows our basic format for speaking unarguably:
1. Observable facts: Objectively describe what you see. Examples: “I see dirty dishes in the sink”; or “I planned to eat the pie, and it is no longer where I left it.”
2. Describe your body sensations. Examples: “My chest is heavy, there’s a knot in my belly.”
3. What are your core emotions? (anger, fear, sadness, joy)
4. Name any images you see and any voices you hear. How is this familiar from the past?
5. Claim your imaginings, perceptions or interpretations as your own. Use words like “I am making up a story that…” or “I imagine that…”
6. Make a request: Focus on what you want or need – rather than what you don’t want – without judgment and without blame; in a way that is truly a request and not a demand, letting go of whether or not your request is met.
Hi,
I was wondering, I’m dating a younger man who’s never been in a long term relationship and never lived with anyone. Since we’ve been living together he’s broken up with me 5 times. I love him and I know he’s a good man but he has issues. He thinks he’s losing his freedom and independence because he’s in a relationship and he never talks about his feelings. I don’t know what to do anymore, I’m always scared that the next time I say something he doesn’t like he’ll break up with me again. This is really hard on me and it leaves a big scare.
Do you have any advice to give me, please help?
Thank you for you time!
Thanks Tina for your question. Your question is about something broader than communication. But let us start with how to communicate your frustrations to your boyfriend. Remember to use the unarguable truth (observable facts, body sensations, core emotions, naming what this brings up from the past, and claiming your perceptions). This might sound like “when you break up with me, I feel tightness in the pit of my stomach, and I get scared. This reminds me of the times when my parents love seemed conditional and I make up a story that the next time I say something you’ll break up with me again”.
We recommend that you also look at your part of the pattern; which sounds to us like a classic pursue-withdraw pattern. To learn more about this pattern you might want to read Sue Johnston’s “Hold Me Tight!”.
We would also recommend counselling, either for both of you so you can learn how to weather the bumps in the road of relationship – OR if he is not willing, individual counselling for yourself so you can look at your own part of the pattern.
We also recommend Martin Rover’s talk on Friday Jan. 29 “How to avoid marrying a jerk” which will look at the art of what you need to do to be in a relationship.
Good luck, Marlene and Bob
My question is this….I don’t remember things. I can sit and have a conversation with my therapist; whom is associated with “Healing Love Academy” and recall just about anything this person says. I try to stay focused and I can’t. Also, I know age is apart of memory problems, but I truly feel that mine is more complex than that. I’ll go to a session and I can honestly say that I do not recall most of our conversation that day, nor any other day. Is there a way that I can possibly focus more or find a way to remember?
Loss of memory can be several things, including aging. However, it can also mean stressful situations, not as a comment about your therapist, but the topics you might be talking about. May I suggest writing stuff on paper, even during the therapy session: have a journal book in which you can keep an ongoing diary of things said, what you heard within a session, feelings and experiences remembered in the session (you are allowed to stop the therapy for a few minutes and write down some ideas). or things needing to bring up in a future session. Therapy is about learning, growth and change: you are allowed to write as much as you need to.
Martin Rovers