A Guide to Hearing and Being Heard
by Brandi Fleck
This is advice on how to improve communication so your people and you feel more valued, respected, understood, and connected.
I’ll never forget talking to an old friend about why he decided to change careers in his 30s - he was a high school science teacher, teaching a subject he loved and nurturing the minds of almost-young-adults who appreciated his teaching and loved his classes.
He’d worked for this career for ages. He’d been teaching for years. He was good at it. And one day, he decided enough was enough and went to work for Dell instead. He had no degree in owning accounts or managing projects or selling technology.
Listen to his story: Surrendering Control - Why a Passionate Teacher Let Go of the Education System
Was the work as rewarding as teaching high school science?
Maybe. Maybe not.
Yet, he was making more money. And that money would, and since has, allowed him to be a home owner, get married, raise a family, and expand into the world without the insecurity of not being able to pay the bills.
Over the last several years, we’ve seen (as a society and culture, here in the United States anyways) an exodus of teachers. The voices of educators are rising up to be told they can’t be paid more.
The implication is, of course, that education isn’t as important as other civic expenses. And that the value of those humans who dedicate their lives and all their extra time to molding the minds of our future generations are expendable and don’t deserve to live in stability.
Personally, having sat beside my youngest son through online school during the entirety of the pandemic, getting to listen to an entire year of first grade - I got to know his teacher in a way that was never accessible before and was sad when the school year ended. I missed her when the school year was over. And I heard and saw all the things she had to teach and spend her own time on learning and doing to make sure the year was a success. She did an absolutely amazing job and I couldn’t have been happier with the online learning option during the pandemic, that she and all the other teachers in our county were new at.
It was miraculous. I understand so much more about what goes on in an elementary school classroom now, even if it was over Zoom.
The point is, she was expected to adapt, teach the kids how to adapt, manage all of them through a screen, and still teach them and figure out how to work on the most important skills they need without being physically with them. When she wasn’t on the screen, she was grading or recording videos, and doing things teachers do that we don’t see or think about as non-teachers.
Related: Adjusting to the New Normal - The Freedom of Online Education
The reason I bring education up and going back to the first educator I mentioned, who decided to go work at Dell instead - is because it was a shame to lose him as a teacher. (Obviously it was amazing that he finally was able to afford the life he wanted, but…) Young minds are missing out, even if someone else can step in and teach the same subject in his place.
And they’re missing out because, he says, no one is listening to teachers about what they need to do their jobs well.
Security. Stability. Tools.
And to be heard about it all.
And not just heard, but acknowledged, and understood, and understood enough that the importance of making changes is taken to heart and starts happening.
Other guests on the Human Amplified podcast (formerly the On Being Human podcast) echo the same sentiment, even as non-teachers, about wishing other people would listen more to understand rather than react. Teachers are just one example of how not listening can get us to a breaking point within systems larger than ourselves…
…how listening or not listening can make or break a community.
It starts with one person in one interaction, and snowballs from there.
So, I’ve put together the knowledge I have as an expert in communications and student of human nature, here in this guide.
Read on, babes.
Why Being Heard is Important
Being heard is one of our fundamental needs as humans. Socially, it’s as important as breathing air or drinking water.
Since humans are social creatures and rely on relationships and communities to attain well-being, being heard is one of the most important aspects of communication that make relationships and communities work.
And being cared about by other people enhances your mental health and ability to handle other things in life that would be harder without support, such as advancing in a career, raising children, or getting through the hard times such as deaths or divorces. Being heard can equal feeling cared for, which enhances our overall well-being.
Opportunities to hear and be heard touch every aspect of our human lives, from areas as large as having functioning families and careers to simple, everyday tasks such as getting a hair cut, going to the grocery store, or even reserving some quiet time for yourself to recharge every now and then.
Being heard can impact everything from your self esteem to whether or not you find conversations in old or new relationships fulfilling.
Even if you strive not to rely on external validation to value yourself and maintain the knowledge of your self worth, being heard can help you grow, flourish, and bloom as a human.
That’s because being heard is the primary way we transfer knowledge and ideas. It’s the seed that creates the change we want to see in the world, no matter how tiny or huge.
What it means to be Heard
By “be heard,” I mean be actively listened to. A person can hear you without listening.
But to truly be heard (a.k.a. actively listened to) is the starting point of being understood.
You can be heard by another person or yourself.
To be heard not only involves another person using their ears and/or eyes to take in a communication, emotion, or message from you, but the mind and heart are also involved in making connections about what you’re conveying, whether verbally or non-verbally, to reach an understanding.
The person doing the hearing is paying close enough attention, without distraction, that they interpret and perceive what you’re putting out into the world for consumption accurately and in the way you intended for it to be received.
People can truly hear you even when they disagree with you, just as you can truly hear another person, even when you disagree with them.
Being heard is part of communication that can easily go awry, but when done intentionally with insight and wisdom, can help relationships harmoniously flow in a way that helps each contributor feel respected, valued, and understood.
Being heard goes awry because miscommunication is normal - we’re all human and make mistakes. And as humans, we also usually perceive and relate to someone else’s message through the lens of our own truths and experiences, which may be vastly different from someone else’s - the person’s who’s doing the talking.
Knowing another person’s experiences, worldview, nature, and where they’re coming from helps the listener to set aside their own lens in order to interpret what the other person is saying or conveying.
Setting aside our own experiences to fully absorb those of another to understand what they’re saying or conveying requires empathy and the ability to hold space for that other person regardless of our own experiences.
Being heard means someone is openly holding space for you.
Really hearing someone isn’t waiting on your turn to speak or thinking about a response before the other person is done conveying their message.
Being Heard by Other People
When other people hear you, a communing happens — a connection. You have a right to be heard by other people, no matter who and where you are.
You might also like: High Volume - an Insider Look at Coming Up in the Seattle 90s Grunge Scene and the Impacts of Fame, Then and Now with Carrie Akre of Bands Hammerbox, Goodness, and The Rockfords
Not everyone can hear you at all times though, and that’s okay. And even if someone hears you and you hear someone else, you won’t necessarily become close or build a functional relationship. So many factors go into whether relationships form and succeed or fail, and active listening is only one aspect. However, all relationships start with some form of proximity (whether physical or online location) and communication (verbal and nonverbal).
With that said, let’s dissect how a conversation works in order to understand the “being heard” portion of a conversation and how it fits into our relationships.
Parts of a Conversation
A conversation can be short, long, shallow, or deep and typically involves a give and take between at least two or more people. Participants in a conversation can be close, strangers, or acquaintances. The conversation’s purpose can be to achieve a transactional goal or literally just for the fun of it. Despite this, a conversation can be one-sided or fair. Conversations can naturally flow or they can feel forced and awkward.
There’s a time and a place for each of these conversation types.
For now, we won’t judge whether each conversation type is good or bad. We’ll just objectively look at the parts and pieces of a conversation to think of ways we can make them flow better in our own lives.
To make this easy, let’s assume there are two people in the conversation we’re about to think about. However, these parts can apply to a conversation with multiple people as well.
(These are not official terms, by the way. I’m saying this in my own words based on my own understanding.)
The Talker
There are about a million types of talkers out there, that is, exploratory, direct, indirect, repeaters, bare minimums, over sharers, and so forth. At times, the type of talker someone is may change based on the situation too. I personally love them all because it’s fun to learn about people’s personalities. But, a conversation is typically initiated by the talker. The role of the talker is to guide the flow of the conversation. Then, the role of talker can alternate back and forth for the duration of the conversation.
The Listener
The listener is the person the talker initiates a conversation with. The role of the listener is to take in what the other person is saying with the goal of clarity and understanding. The listener uses body language, empathy, personal experience, and knowledge to interpret what the talker is saying. The role of the listener can alternate back and forth for the duration of the conversation, as the listener starts sharing their own thoughts on the topic.
The Topic
This is the subject of the conversation. There can be one or any number of topics in a conversation depending on where it veers to, as guided by each person as they become the talker.
The Flow
The flow is the amount of natural back and forth in a conversation where each person gets the amount of speaking time they desire, in which each person’s speaking time reinforces an understanding of what the other person was saying as well, based on what they learned while listening.
The Connection
Regardless of how connected you are to the person you’re in conversation with in general, a conversation is a way of making a connection with that person. You are connecting over the topic at hand.
Whether or not the connection results in a deepening, remaining status quo, becoming shallow, or even fracturing depends on how understood each person felt. That understanding starts with truly hearing what’s being said.
Reasons Why People Wait for Their Turn to Speak Rather than Actively Listening to Understand
There are plenty reasons why humans might “hear” someone without really listening. Some are honest mistakes and areas to work on while others are disrespectful and red flags that boundaries are needed.
Excluding illness and various different-bodied reasons for why a person may be unable to listen as you’d want them to include reasons such as:
A person may be afraid of silence - this drives them to think about what they’d say when you’re done so as to not have to pause to think about a response.
A person may not be comfortable with not responding - some people think they have to respond with wisdom or insight or advice rather than just acknowledging what you said.
A person may be afraid of looking stupid - I’ve met plenty of people who think that if they don’t respond immediately that the other person will think they’re too slow.
A person may assume they already know what you’re going to say. They interject because that’s their talking style but they assumed wrong.
A person may think what they have to say is more important than what you have to say.
A person may have an agenda they’re trying to push.
There could be more reasons why a person wouldn’t actively listen, but all of these reasons are based in fear and a mindset of lack or loss. That doesn’t mean you can’t talk to people who do these things. Just understand that the reason they’re doing these things isn’t about you. These are also reasons that are beyond your control, as the person conveying a message you want to be heard.
Reasons exist on the more positive end of the spectrum too though.
For instance, a person may be so excited or passionate about what they want to say that they couldn’t contain their excitement and therefore had trouble hearing you. This is different than not listening out of fear or anxiety.
The distinction of knowing if a person is reacting out of fear or love is important.
When a person isn’t listening to you, try to discern the reason behind it so you can determine if it’s acceptable for that person to treat you the way they’re treating you. While an honest mistake or positive intention can still do harm or have a less than ideal outcome, it’s vastly different than ill intention or actions based in fear.
It’s really okay to take a person’s motivation into consideration when you determine how to relate to that person.
Honestly, one or two mistakes fueled with good intention is better than one disrespectful interaction that was intentional. Hands down.
And everyone makes mistakes.
But, sometimes, people are hurtful intentionally too. How do you know which is which when the outcome of an honest mistake and an intentional slight is the same?
Let’s keep diving deeper to figure it out.
What it Feels Like when Someone Isn’t Really Listening to You
If a person isn’t really listening to you, you might be alerted to that fact if they’re distracted, if they’re not asking questions, if they’re not looking at you, if they’re multitasking, or if they respond in an inappropriate way or with a comment that isn’t related to what you’re actually saying.
It happens to the best of us. When this happens, you might feel:
Frustrated.
Disappointed.
Invisible.
Unimportant.
Disrespected.
Misunderstood.
All of these feelings come with not being heard. That’s normal and it’s okay to feel negative emotions as a result of not being heard.
What to do when you aren’t being heard
Not being heard can be a red flag if it’s coming from a place of disrespect. But not being heard can also indicate the people you’re talking to just don’t have the capability to truly hear you at the moment. Or maybe you are being heard, you’re just not recognizing it because of some baggage you carry with you in life.
Either way, you have to decide where the feeling of being unheard is coming from and start making changes to start feeling heard. To do that, you must:
Understand why you’re not being heard
Decide if you’re okay with why you’re not being heard
Take action accordingly to hear or be heard
Understand why you’re not being heard
Understanding why someone isn’t listening to you can help you determine if you’re really being disrespected or if it’s not actually about you. There are what seem like an unlimited amount of scenarios you may have to evaluate. More on that below in a sec.
Either way, knowing why you’re not being heard helps you determine if you’re okay with the treatment you’re receiving.
Decide if you’re okay with why you’re not being heard
This is where boundaries come in. Where do your limits come in for what you’re willing to tolerate from another person?
If you’re constantly allowing boundaries to be breached, ask yourself why. Did the person make an honest mistake or is this continual treatment? Get to the bottom of how that makes you feel. Then, decide if you’re okay with extending grace based on the circumstance or if you’re constantly feeling bad and want to keep feeling that way.
Take action accordingly to hear or be heard
If you don’t like the way not being heard makes you feel, what about your situation can you change? Hint: There’s a lot more that you can change than you think.
Take one step to change it. This could look like these actions, but isn’t limited to these:
Having a conversation about how you feel
Setting expectations
Setting boundaries
In the next couple of sections, we’ll go even more in depth.
Reasons Why I feel Ignored
Maybe you find yourself asking why do I never feel heard? If you want to be heard, let’s talk about the potential reasons (problems) why you may not be. Once you understand those reasons, you can address them. Addressing those reasons leads to your desired outcome.
Problem 1: You don’t hear other people
Do you ignore other people regularly? Do you de-prioritize certain relationships? Do you think your opinion or the way you feel is more important than what someone else is trying to tell you?
Or, perhaps you have a short attention span, are constantly multitasking, or are easily bored.
Maybe you just don’t have a lot of practice.
Either way, identifying this as your problem is a good starting point for learning how to be a good active listener! After all, you can’t get better at something if you don’t know you need to.
Problem 2: You surround yourself with people who refuse to listen to you
There are a multitude of reasons we self sabotage as humans. If you’ve been through trauma or abuse, one way you may self sabotage is by surrounding yourself with people who disrespect you because it feels familiar. Or maybe you don’t believe what you have to say is worth listening to. Or maybe you’re empathic and just attract narcissists who would rather not listen.
Problem 3: You don’t let yourself be heard
Are you afraid to speak your mind? Are you afraid of being judged? Are you afraid of looking stupid? Are you shy? Are you timid? Do you think what you have to say isn’t important? If you answered yes to any of these, you may be behind not being heard as opposed to other people not listening being the problem.
Problem 4: You’re talking to the wrong people
Not everybody wants to know about your grandma’s cookie recipe, and that’s okay. But if it’s your favorite and brings you so much joy you just have to talk about it, the right people will be all over that and excited to learn more about you. Or maybe your girly best friend just can’t get into Star Wars. Or maybe you’re telling the grocery store clerk your life story instead of saving it for the therapist. Only you can know for sure.
Are you able to judge who to say what to and at what level of detail?
Problem 5: You’re using the wrong method of communication for the circumstance
Would your message go over better if the other person could hear your tone or see your face? Would you be able to more accurately describe something with words over the phone rather than texting a couple words that don’t do it justice? Are you singing a serious message and somberly presenting a light message? How are you communicating and is it working? If it’s not, why?
Problem 6: You don’t listen to yourself
Do you silence gut feelings and initial impulses? Why? Can you tell the difference between your own inner voice and all the external noise? Do you trust others more than yourself? Do you drink a Coke when your body tells you it needs water? Do you push harder when your body says you need rest? If you answered yes to any of these questions, you could be silencing your own inner voice and ignoring yourself. Ignoring yourself teaches other people to ignore you too.
How to Stop Being Ignored
Now, let’s discuss how to address each one of the reasons for why you may feel ignored. Each of these solutions is a way to communicate more clearly and get your message across.
Solution 1: Actively listen to other people
The person you’re talking to may have the world on their shoulders in the moment you chose to convey a message to them, so they’re distracted, worried, and incapable of supporting you because they actually need support in that moment more than you do.
In this case, it’s up to you to recognize what’s going on and offer to hear them instead. It’s okay to do that - you’ll end up getting your turn to be heard and it’ll be even more special when you do because your goodwill will have brought you closer in the long run.
Solution 2: Surround yourself with people who respect you enough to actively listen to you
Uncover why you may have people in your life that don’t respect you, and start setting boundaries to protect yourself from disrespect. Start looking for situations and people who know your worth and show it.
This may require you working through some trauma so you can stop self sabotaging.
Solution 3: Speak up when it’s appropriate
You know that quote that likely originated with Maggie Kuhn: “Speak your mind, even if your voice shakes.”
That’s powerful.
Related: The Healing Power of Telling Your Story
Even if you’re afraid, your voice has value. And when fear keeps you from speaking up, there are people in our society who can benefit from you not being heard. Maybe not always maliciously, but how can you benefit if you don’t speak up?
Your ideas, experiences, knowledge, and opinions matter.
Every time you speak up, you won’t be listened to. But, you have to keep speaking up so that some of the times that you do, you are listened to. And if one little inch of a difference is made because it, whether it’s in the quality of your own life or another person’s, then it’s all worth it.
Even if you can’t see the impact of speaking up, I guarantee that it has one. You want to make sure that your intentions are for a positive impact, even if that’s not what results.
For example, while you don’t want to cause harm by speaking up and may inadvertently cause harm, not speaking up may cause more harm in some scenarios, such as in anti-racism work.
Recommended Reading: How Not to Be an Ally
Solution 4: Speak to the people who are able to receive your message
In other words, know your audience.
Of course it’s okay to talk about what’s important to you, even if it’s not always important to the person you’re talking to, but being able to recognize when this happens so you can reign in or adjust how you talk about a topic would probably help keep the conversation flowing.
On a deeper level, recognize when a person is unwilling to receive your message. For example, maybe you want to talk about your trauma. But this could trigger someone else’s trauma that you don’t even know about, which keeps them from fully being able to listen and engage.
That’s totally okay if they can’t support you on this particular topic. You may need to talk to someone else about it if you really want to talk about it and just reserve non-triggering topics for your triggered friend.
Or, maybe a person doesn’t want to hear what you have to say because it brings up jealousy or judgement in them. Perhaps it brings up a fear they haven’t worked through. If this happens all the time, it might be time to change who you’re talking to all together. That person can’t be a friend to you.
Again, all these boundaries are negotiable according to what you’re willing to accept and tolerate.
Solution 5: Communicate through the appropriate channel for the interaction
Make sure the channel of communication you choose, that is text, email, phone call, in-person conversation, meeting at work, etc. fits the type of information you’re exchanging. Think about which channel the message would be the most effective in. The answer may change depending on who you’re trying to talk to, but you have to think about it as part of effective communication.
Solution 6: Listen to yourself first
Another huge component of feeling heard is actually listening to yourself. Let’s explore further.
Listening to yourself is the starting point for teaching others to listen to you too.
Listening to Yourself
You have an inner voice, also known as a conscience, your gut, and can also be referred to as your intuition, at times. It communicates to you in a variety of ways. It can come across as a feeling or emotion, an inner dialogue of conversation, a hunch, or a knowing - to name a few ways.
Listening to your own voice increases self awareness, self confidence, and an ability to pay attention to what your mind, body, and spirit needs. Listening to your own voice strengthens your intuition.
Did you know that sometimes we don’t listen to our own self?
That seems weird if you say it aloud.
But it’s true - think about how many times your body told you that it needed water, but you ignored it and drank a Coke. Or think about a time you had a gut feeling, but ignored it and it turned out that you should have listened.
Perhaps you hear your own voice, but you have trouble discerning what it’s saying. Perhaps you can’t tell your voice from all the other noise. Or, other times, perhaps you silence your own voice.
There are a ton of reasons you may silence your own inner voice, including but not limited to:
You have a habit of second guessing your initial impulses.
You’ve been through abuse, such as gaslighting in an important relationship, in the past that got you into a habit of not trusting your own instincts.
You value the opinions of others more than your own.
You numb your emotions in various ways because they’re hard to deal with, but as a result, your inner voice becomes quieter as well.
If you silence your own voice enough times, you stop hearing it altogether. You never lose it though. To get it back, you just have to practice listening to it again. Over time, it’ll be loud and clear.
3 Ways to Practice Listening to Your Own Inner Voice
The easiest way to build confidence in something is to start doing it. Here are three ways to practice listening to your own inner voice. If done with consistency, over time you’ll strengthen the muscle.
Using Discernment
To listen to yourself, you first have to be able to tell your own voice from those of all the other people, media, and influences in your life. It is totally normal to think something you feel or believe is your own, but upon further inspection, you find it was put there by cultural conditioning or family beliefs, for example, but doesn’t truly resonate with you.
That’s where discernment comes in. Part of discernment is being able to decide which thoughts and feelings are your own inner wisdom versus which ones are just noise from the outside world, even if internalized.
To discern your voice from other noise, all I can say is that it’s yours if it feels right - if it feels like home. You might think something feels right because it’s familiar, but that’s not always the case. If what you’re feeling is familiar, but it’s based in fear or in a feeling of lack or loss, such as hate or insecurity, that’s not really you talking. I promise.
I don’t necessarily know what it is - you’ll have to work that out. But, I know it’s not you.
Journaling
I’m a huge fan of journaling regularly. It’s so great - it helps you process jumbled thoughts and feelings and overtime can show you patterns in your life that you can change or enhance, depending on what your goals are.
Recommended Reading: Finding Your Purpose through Journaling
For strengthening your inner voice and ability to listen to it, do this exercise:
Start noting what your gut feelings and hunches are and then note whether they were accurate or not after some time passes and you see the outcome of what you had a gut feeling about.
Meditating
I’m also a huge fan of meditating to gain insight and wisdom around a certain area in which I need guidance or clarity. Oftentimes, the answers can come as a spiritual process. Whether you believe in God, angels, and spirit guides or not, guidance during meditation can also come from your own voice and inner knowing.
Recommended Reading: Finding Your Purpose through Meditation
By meditating, you’re creating space and quiet so you can hear the guidance.
At different times in my life, meditating has come easier than others. So, I totally get it if you think it’s hard to do. If that’s you, I recommend starting with a guided meditation that helps you set the intention of hearing your own inner wisdom.
One of my favorite places to find guided meditations is ask-angels.com. But there are a ton to choose from on YouTube or even podcasts offering free daily meditations that you can find that speak to you.
What it Feels Like When Someone Is Really Listening to You
When someone is really hearing you, you may be alerted to that fact if they’re giving you focused attention, affirming that they hear what you’re saying, and respond in the appropriate way by asking questions or remarking on something you said followed by how they feel about it. If what you were saying involves advice or an idea about how to do a certain thing, if that person is listening, you might subsequently see actions put into place based on what you said.
It’s great when this happens and brings with it a host of happy emotions. You might feel:
Encouraged.
Supported.
Respected.
Understood.
Valued.
Connected.
You feel like you’re contributing to a community, place of employment, or relationship and that your ideas matter.
Being heard can even help you feel like you have purpose and bolster motivation to keep going in a direction that feels good and works for you.
It provides hope and goodwill in relationships. You feel cared for.
And on a larger scale, if you go public with whatever message it is that you have, and readers or listeners respond and let you know that they relate, it can also help you feel like you’re making a difference.
How to Make Someone Else Feel Heard
If someone doesn’t want to be heard, you can’t make them feel heard, no matter how hard you try. If a connection is strained or you can’t see the forrest for the trees in a relationship because you’re in the thick of discord and issues, time and space might be needed in order to gain some clarity and calm so you can actively listen with respect.
However, typically the number one way to help someone feel heard is to actively listen to them.
How to Actively Listen
When someone is coming to you to connect on a topic, active listening can bolster that connection and improve understanding, decrease miscommunication, and build stronger relationships. Creativity and fun results can come from the communing that occurs with active listening. Here’s how you do it.
Step 1: Get rid of distractions
If someone comes to you to genuinely connect and talk about something other than a quick hello, give them the attention they deserve. If it’s a bad time, a.k.a. you’re in the middle of an important or time-sensitive task that you can’t put down, tell them that! Ask them to come back later when you can give them your full attention. But make sure you do make the time when they come back later, or actively go to them when you’re ready.
While active listening can’t always be the default mode, it should be what you strive for because multitasking isn’t great, even though it’s been used as a badge of honor in our culture for a while now. If you’re going to have to multitask through a conversation, it’s proven that you won’t remember all of it, you won’t comprehend all of it, and at the same time, the other thing you’re doing will also suffer.
Not to mention that the person who doesn’t have your full attention will feel like you didn’t care much or didn’t prioritize the conversation. And really, if you don’t stop doing what you’re doing to listen, did you really prioritize that conversation? No, you didn’t.
Step 2: Pay attention to and use non-verbal queues
This means that you need to read another person’s body language in addition to the tone of their voice and actual message of what they’re saying to figure out how they’re feeling.
For example, their voice could sound confident and authoritative while their body language could indicate they’re nervous. You may adjust your stance to be more inviting and open if someone is nervous versus if they’re not.
Either way, nod or use affirmative language to indicate you’re listening as they’re talking and make appropriate eye contact too.
Step 3: Listen openly and without intent to respond
Instead of thinking about what you want to say, take in what the other person is saying, process it, and sit with it. This can all be done within a conversation and doesn’t have to take a long time, but it can if you need it to.
This helps you comprehend what a person is actually saying, recognize what you don’t understand about what they’re saying, and also allows you to adapt to their communication style as needed.
You’ll likely have a chance to respond with what you think eventually. And if you’re worried you won’t know what to say, it is absolutely okay to tell a person, once they’re finished speaking, that you need a little time to think about what they said before you respond. I do this all the time. All. The. Time.
Step 4: Respond anyways (when appropriate) in the appropriate ways
Meaning, when you finally have your chance to respond, then think about what you want to say. This may look like an exploratory thought process, or again, saying you need to think about what the person just said before responding, or it could even look like silence and a facial expression or hug.
If it is appropriate for you to offer thoughts, since you didn’t prepare your thoughts while the other person was talking, it may take you a minute to formulate your thoughts. That’s totally okay. You don’t have to feel rushed, even if the other person seems to want to rush you.
To buy some time, start with saying how what they said made you feel or what you like about it as this information is typically easily accessible while the deeper response is still forming in your mind and heart.
Or, if you don’t have anything of depth to add, you can say that too and ask questions instead.
Step 5: Ask questions. Ask questions. Ask questions.
Asking a question about something a person said doesn’t make you look stupid. It’s actually the opposite.
It conveys that you are engaged and interested enough in what the person was saying to want to know more about it.
You can ask a question about anything you didn’t understand in the person’s message or even about their communication style in general to help you reach understanding. You can also ask questions about the content of the message, prompting them to dive deeper into a certain aspect of it that interests you.
Asking questions is arguably the most important part of active listening because it helps the person take their message even deeper in a way that you can better understand, if need be.
And, isn’t understanding and clarity one of the main goals of communication?
NOTE: If anyone ever says to you that you asked a stupid question, there’s something else going on with that person that isn’t your problem to work out. Don’t let their problem become yours. Keep asking questions anyways.
How to Know when someone is actively listening to you
Just as with how to actively listen, you know if someone is actively listening to you if they:
Give you focused attention, free of distractions
Pay attention to your non-verbal language and use their own appropriate, affirming body language
Affirm that they’re listening
Adapt to your communication style
Don’t interrupt constantly
Ask questions related to gaining more understanding and clarity for themselves or insight from you
There could be other clues. If you can think of any, let us know in the comments below!
Conclusion
Hearing others and being heard yourself is crucial to our well-being as humans.
It’s a sign of respect and helps us feel respected. It’s one of the main, if not the main, aspects of effective communication that helps our relationships work harmoniously at best and functionally at worst. This aspect of communication helps communities come together and assists with melding of minds to create some truly amazing feats of humanity.
Active listening is the cornerstone to hearing and being heard mixed in with being able to read your audience and understand if it’s a good time or not be listened to.
If you’re not listening, you can start and it’ll improve your life. If you’re not being heard, you can change your circumstances so that you are, and it’ll improve your life.
Ultimately, with effort and growth that’s definitely worthwhile, the understanding and respect you’re looking for is available to you through actively listening to others and being in the company of those who actively listen to you.
About the Author
Brandi Fleck is a writer, artist, and a recognized communications and interviewing expert. She is also an avid researcher of human nature and founder of Human Amplified, where she helps people embrace being their true selves so they can expand more fully into their own humanity without fear of being seen and heard. Brandi hosts the top-rated Human Amplified podcast (formerly the On Being Human podcast).
