What are effective active listening techniques for volunteers who have experienced trauma?

During the debriefing process or when an individual decides to open up about their traumatic experience, their brains are hypervigilant to possible or perceived threats, the most important one for survival: rejection. Feeling accepted means that a human will have safety. This is why active listening is so important in these cases, because it helps the person feel validated and accepted through their traumatic experience. It makes them feel safe and restore hope.

active listening is vital for volunteers as it improves communication, builds trust and empathy, and enhances problem-solving abilities. By actively engaging in this skill, volunteers can create more meaningful connections with those they serve, leading to more successful and impactful volunteer experiences.

Listening skills for Volunteers who have experienced trauma or for those they are listening to? Either one requires looking beyond ourselves. Listening means paying attention to what another person is saying or a sound we hear. Listening is an action, and if we are not paying attention then we are not listening and are foucused on oursleves and what we need. Listening is a skill all by itself. Everyone has heard of, seen, or experienced some kind of trama, unless they have cut themselves from the world. When we go beyond ourselves we show we truly care and our lisenting skill is revealed. When our interest is our only interest we have no listening skills.

To activaly listen we need to actually care. Old traditional frameworks put focus on objectiveness. Now we know how important empathy is in our work with trauma. When we prepare ourselves to validate, we prepare ourselves to care, to pay attention, to make company during different emotions. We let go of the pursuit of change and we embrace acceptance of whatever the person feels or experiences from their point of view. This might feel dangerous or risky, we might feel that validating extreme emotions can escalate them. Trusting the power of validation will help you navigate the discomfort of making room to experience what the other person is sharing as it is. Validation has shown to effectively help regulate emotional crisis.

Listening skills are proven by how someone listenes freely without having to be taught. If I am having to teach someone how to listen by sounds and words then listening is forced. The one learning is focused on themselves making sounds or their body lanuage to prove they are listening and never pay attention to speaker. The skill of listening is revealed naturally when the person genuinely cares and has an interest in what the speaker is saying and their words and body language comes naturally for the speaker to know they genuinely care.

Again listening comes naturally when we truly care for someone and have a geniune interest in them and how they cope with life. How we repond is a sign we truly care. If we have anwers to help them we will answer with a reponse that will lift them from the dark place they are in. They may just want someone to listen so they can process the trama and are not ready to hear answers. It depends on the person and what they need. People do not repond to trama the same and we learn that by listening.

Listening is a sign we know our Heavenly Father and Jesus, His Son, by Their Holy Spirit. What They give through the Holy Spirit gives us the skills to listen in a truthful graceful way that goes beyond our human self interest. We become interested in what God interest is in others, and that is saving all from darkness, and a trama always comes with darkness. Listeners prove they want to learn and help because they experience darkness too?? ???