I Feel You Don’t Listen
When I say you don’t listen, I don’t necessarily mean I told you to do something and you seemed not to hear it. It looks like you hear some noise, but the message doesn’t get through.
Of course, this has never happened to you, whichever side of the conversation you are on; nonetheless, nowadays we are often overwhelmed by the noise around us. It can be about FOMO, when you are just attached to a device and imagine you have the right to ignore everyone around… or simply you have a lot on your mind and even though you notice the noise, your mind is doing its own thing.
Generally, we remember very little of what comes our way and this is quite normal since we have an auto-delete system for the unimportant stuff that gets stored up in our brain. If you wonder what you did three months ago, you might recall very little; by using a calendar, journal or scanning the thousands of mails since then, some of it may get back to you... not very detailed though.
We think much faster than we can put into words and, because of this, when engaged in a discussion, we no longer have the patience to listen to the other person. This may bring us to interrupt them often, which leads to the impression that we are not listening.
Active listening techniques will help you somewhat: ask questions, repeat certain phrases “if I understood right, you want me to write with chalk the computer screen? or encourage the person speaking through body language.
The biggest problem we have is the impression we do listen to what is communicated to us, but reality shows it is only white noise while the mind is busy someplace else.
When you listen to what others are talking doesn’t mean you are passive, on the contrary, your answers will show them they didn’t speak in vain.
Good luck listening!
Originally published at Bogdan.blog