If you’ve had any experience at all with women, you’ll be aware of this familiar complaint: “Men don’t communicate” or “Men don’t listen.”
Conversely, one of the highest praises a woman can give a man is to say: “He really listens” Or “He understands me / I can talk to him.”
Because we as men are such selective listeners and (usually) linear processors, active, empathic listening and communications skills are not something most men are gifted with from birth (although there are exceptions). Women seem to have better ‘natural’ skills in this area, and from that major distinction I believe flows something at least 75% of marital or relational fights, disagreements and major splits.
You’ve probably read articles before on the importance of listening and communication to the health of any relationship. This post will go beyond that, and illustrate not only how, but also why, and, more importantly, how you can leverage a skill you are already probably good at — being strong and silent — to make your woman feel really understood.
Why is this beneficial? Well, if greater happiness, harmony, and less strife in your relationship aren’t enough of a reason, think about this: I’ve observed that making a woman feel really understood is an almost surefire way to get her wet.
Our sexuality is based around our emotional core. Take care of the emotional core and the sex will follow.
How To Listen. . . Actually, For Real
Try the following exercise.
Grab a buddy and ask him to tell you about something interesting he’s done recently — snowboarding trip, presentation at work, fucking his girlfriend, whatever it may be. Choose something you know will cause him to talk at length.
Then, as he’s talking, pay attention: and whenever your ‘inner voice’ wants to chime in with a comment, question, thought about yourself, or alternate conversational thread, raise your hand.
Do this for the entire time he’s talking, until one or both of you are two weirded out to continue, or he runs out of steam. Try to keep track of how many times you’ve raised your hand: if you’re like most of us, it will be a lot.
Here’s a rubric (for about 5 minutes of listening):
The benefit of this exercise is that it will bring awareness to how often you feel the urge to interrupt others when they’re talking; and more than that, when your mind is busily distracting itself, e.g. not really listening.
True empathic listening is just the process of working to reduce these internal thought eddies as much as possible, to the point that you are really tracking staying with your speaker, and not just with yourself.
Empathic listening is also characterized by:
It may seem strange to imagine yourself as being anything but a fully equal conversation partner when you’re listening. The fact is, with active and empathic listening, we suspend our own egos, judgments and ‘expert’ status as humans, putting them aside temporarily in order to provide the speaker the best possible experience of being truly heard (not just listened to).
Keep in mind that suspending your opinions, beliefs, and points of view does not mean you have to be subsumed in another persons’. What you are doing in empathic listening is only temporary — you are putting your normal role as Judge of Everything on hold, letting yourself fully inhabit the speaker’s world while you listen.
Once they have said their piece, however, you can withdraw from their world and formulate, articulate and respond.
Common Pitfalls to Empathic Listening
Be warned: doing this right is incredibly difficult. The biggest challenge you will face will probably be distractions, both internal and external. We as humans seem to be suffering from a pandemic of shortened attention spans, and the constant “time-saving” “reminders” of our technological culture (IMs / Blackberry / email alerts / voice mail / text messages / tweets) are custom-made concentration-ruiners.
If you really want to do this right, you have to eliminate distractions. Turn off your cell phone, close the door, pull down the shade (or position yourself where there is nothing interesting in the visual field behind the speaker). If you are on the phone, close your eyes. I actually find it easier to do this on the phone, because I can close my eyes and narrow my attention to just my auditory channel.
Beware, also, of the problem of H.A.T: being distracted by being Hungry, Angry (or any other extreme emotion) or Tired. These conditions will make it difficult to focus and reflect properly. Don’t be afraid to tell the speaker, “I’m sorry, I am doing my best to listen but it’s a challenge just now because I am (H/A/T), so please bear with me”). Life will likely not allow you to only have these important conversations when you are calm and well-rested.
You will also have a major internal battle you will fight against your ingrained conversational habits, which, for most of us, include some or all of the following:
Remember, even “helpful” interruptions — those that are designed to show agreement or understanding or empathy — are bad for empathic listening, if they cross the threshold into consciousness. There’s no problem beaming empathic feelings towards your listener as she talks, because she is probably only subconsciously aware of that; but if you’re chiming in with “Totally man” and “Oh I’m there” every 20 seconds, you need to shut up.
Helpful Habits to Improve your Listening Skills
When the going gets tough, remind yourself that what you are doing is difficult work, but will pay off hugely.
Although they aren’t aware of it, most people don’t even bring up their most important or central point as the first topic when they get a chance to speak freely — it usually takes a while (sometimes it takes hours). Being given the space to freely talk while being actually listened to is a terrifying and wonderful gift, and you will be shocked at where people go when you really let them. You will get much more information much more quickly (and of a much higher quality, to boot) by listening well (see The Power of Emotional Communication for more on what type of information you might get, and what to do with it).
As a final bonus, if you’re one of those people who loves it when others ask for your opinion or thoughts (I am), then you’ll love this technique; because when you don’t offer your advice right off the bat (like most people do), people become genuinely curious what you’re thinking about what they’re saying, and they ask you for your opinion — and, best of all, they genuinely do want to know.
The final part of empathic listening does include a reflective piece. Rather than parroting back what someone has said, however, you must develop the skill of reflecting the emotional content of someone’s words. For this, you will almost inevitably go beyond paraphrasing or re-stating to uncover the subtext of their statement. That skill goes into the larger question of how to communicate back accurately and responsibly, once we’ve listened empathically.
How To Communicate. . . Actually, For Real
A lot of the books you might read on “active” listening will stick close to the tired cliche of echoing what you hear the speaker say. More misguided advice would be hard to find. Repeating or echoing statements, even with a qualifying “What I hear you saying is . . .” not only runs a terrible risk of coming across as patronizing, but also does very little to provide a check on meaning.
So, for all you re-cap happy “active listeners” out there, here’s how to improve your ‘recapping’ to the level where it will actually have an emotional resonance for the speaker. I call that level “reflection”.
Reflection is simply making a brief statement that reflects the emotional tone or drift of a speaker’s line of thought. It does not need to parrot their language or conversational style (in fact, it will usually be more effective if it doesn’t); it just needs to be accurate to what they are feeling, and to the underlying information or subtext of their communication.
First, you need to know when to reflect back on the speaker. It is hard to do it “too late”, as most people have a lot more to say than they let on (as I mentioned above). Be sure to wait until your speaker is absolutely, 100% done before interjecting with a reflection. One signpost for this is if they start repeating themselves, or recycling back to the beginning of the story and going back over the same ground. Some people will just stop speaking and stare at you, mouth hanging open in wonder that you haven’t said anything yet. Some may also prompt you with something like, “What do you think?”
Here’s an example of good reflection:
Girl: “I’m so sick of my job. My boss drives me crazy, just nuts. I can’t stand a single second more in that place. I give and give and give and do everything, and they never seem to notice it. I do SO MUCH for that place! It’s crazy.”
Guy: “You’re feeling really unappreciated.”
It’s OK to guess a bit at what the emotional content of a speaker’s message it. Accurate reflection requires constant, tiny leaps of faith. It’s a bit like aiming a dart at where you think the speaker is — but unlike throwing darts, it’s OK if you are a bit off target, because that is in fact the function of the reflection: if you’re wrong, the speaker gets the message that you’re trying, and corrects you.
Using the above example:
Girl: “It’s not just that I’m unappreciated — that’s been happening my whole life. It’s the disdain with which they seem to treat me. I’ve been there 3 years and I’ve only gotten one raise. It’s like they don’t see me as good enough, because I’m younger than everyone there.”
Guy: “Wow, is this just a continuation of the bad part of your life saga?”
Here, the guy is using his pre-existing knowledge of the girl — youngest of 5, always fighting uphill, received bad treatment from her dad and subsequent relationships with men — to guess that it might be another manifestation of her primary strife pattern. It’s not a bad guess, based on the info, and if he’s wrong, she’ll correct him again.
If he’s right, on the other hand, he may have brought important awareness to her of that primary pattern, which — you never know — might be useful for her in changing it. Note that changing people should never be the goal of empathic listening and communication (see How to Get Women to Do Exactly What you Want for more on the best practices in changing people); the goal of empathic listening and communication is simply to create a space for the speaker to feel truly heard (and all the attendant benefits).
Give this a try, today. You will be amazed at how the communication patterns are changed. A lot of what is taught in the pickup and seduction communication is, sorry to say, absolutely toxic to authentic empathic communication — pretty much 100% the opposite of what has been shown to work towards the goal of people understanding and relating better with one another. Tactics like “plowing” and the whole concept of “frame control”, re-framing, and conversational threads are extremely effective at generating attraction and can help you get laid, but they are not in any way what I’d call “healthy” in the traditional sense (and I say that as a guy who has written articles on those topics).
To those with misgivings: letting girls go on and on may seem the anathema of what a savvy, alpha PUA would want to do, but in the context of a relationship, or even just for the sake of getting more “real” information from a girl (building rapport, etc), it can’t be beat. Try it — now.
And then report back in the comments on how it’s working for you. I enjoy hearing your feedback.