Love Language

 

My love language is quality time with the dialect of quality conversation. I could talk all day, and I have. I am what my husband affectionately calls, a Babbling Brook. I like to have long conversations, long enough where we can fix the world’s problems. I love to listen to others’ opinions and perspectives that help me to see there is more to the world than my small thoughts. I love to learn from others’ experiences. I feel my mind and world opening when I try to see the world from another’s eyes when I try to put myself in their shoes.

I do feel like a talent I have is a good listener (I love to listen), which I think adds to me liking long quality conversations, but I am not the best at it. It has been something that I’ve had to work on and develop. I learned this week that learning to master the skill of listening is one of the seven habits Stephen Covey wrote about in “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People”. It is Habit 5 – Seek first to understand, then to be understood. This is part of the habit that I know I need to improve on. Covey says, “Most people don’t listen with an intent to understand – they listen with the intent to reply. They are either speaking or preparing to speak. They see others through the lens of their own autobiographies. The key to understanding another person is empathetic listening – really trying to understand everything (including nonverbal signals) the other person is communicating. You listen for feeling and for meaning, for behavior and other signals. You are totally focused on the other person’s point of view, not projecting your own life’s story into their words.”

By living life and having experiences, especially hard ones, I am learning how to be a better empathetic listener. I’m learning that when I choose to listen empathetically, it changes the entirety of the conversation. Instead of each person just sharing stories; you share experiences that strengthen a connection between the persons. They feel supported. They feel heard. They feel validated. They feel seen. Most importantly, they feel remembered.

There is great power in these feelings. For me, when I know that someone has put forth effort into empathetically listening to me, I feel more anchored in my life. I don’t feel belittled like my life didn’t matter. My depression lessens, and my anxiety leaves. I feel empowered. I dare to keep going living my life. I know how amazing it feels for me, so I strive to help others feel the same way.

I guess the problem I see with empathetic listening is it can take a long time. I am not an open or vulnerable person. I don’t just automatically choose to show that side of myself, to just anyone. I will when I feel safe with someone when I have seen their effort to try empathetically listening to my life. But I fear very few people in my life are willing to do that. It takes me a while to become vulnerable. I fear that very few love me enough to put forth that much time into talking with me. I fear “my slow of tongue” is off-putting, and it’s a bother for others to deal with. Thankfully, I do have my few who do make that effort and some who are showing me that they are willing.

Even still, if my empathetic listening can help strengthen someone else, then I will listen for as long as it takes for them to feel that.