Listening to Understand Rather Than Respond
The Wellness Compass Initiative is our partner community wellness initative that serves schools, counseling centers, nonprofits, and other community wellness organizations. Each week Holly Hughes Stoner and Scott Stoner co- write a column for Wellness Compass and we are pleased to share it here on our Living Compass site. There is also a Wellness Compass podcast at www.wellnesscompass.org/podcast.
Last week, we shared some advice on how to begin unraveling and hopefully resolving conflict in a relationship. This week, we would like to add one more tip. And while this tip is simple to understand, it can be challenging to practice.
One of the most important gifts we can offer in any relationship is the gift of deep and authentic listening. This is best described as listening to understand, rather than to respond.
Our good listening skills are easy to practice when a relationship is going well. However, listening often deteriorates in a relationship when there is unresolved conflict. So, the first step we can take to begin to heal the conflict is to listen and sincerely attempt to understand what the other person is thinking and feeling.
As therapists, we have seen the effectiveness of this approach in conflict resolution. When we work with people in conflict, helping them to de-escalate enough to actually be able to listen to what the other is experiencing is always the first step we take. We remind people that listening is not agreement, but is instead an attempt to understand what it is truly like to stand in the other person’s shoes.
This is not easy, and we usually find that the first attempts at this kind of listening are often interrupted by a need to respond and “correct” the other person. As we mentioned above, the concept of listening to understand rather than respond is simple to understand, but is much more challenging to practice.
Most of us think of ourselves as good listeners. And hopefully, that is true much of the time. Most of us struggle to maintain good listening skills, however, when we strongly disagree with another person. With practice and commitment, we can increase our ability to listen to truly understand, thus strengthening our relationships.
Making It Personal: Is there a specific relationship with which you would like to practice “listening to understand, rather than to respond” this week?
Thanks again for sharing your relationship questions with us. Your engagement is what makes our column and podcast meaningful. We appreciate your care and commitment to the relationships in your lives, and we're grateful to be on this journey with you.
Please be in touch with us by emailing us at connect@wellnesscompass.org
We invite you to listen to this week's podcast episode if you are interested in a few of our thoughts about this piece. It is easy to listen to the ten-minute episode. To find it—click HERE, and you will be taken to our Wellness Compass website, where you simply need to push the "play" button to listen to the audio.
Authors: Holly Hughes Stoner, LMFT, and Scott Stoner, LMFT
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