You're Not Listening: What You're Missing and Why It Matters

by Kate Murphy

Social media has given everyone a virtual megaphone to broadcast every thought, along with the means to filter out any contrary view.

Filtering what you dont agree with.

Digital distraction keeps the mind occupied but does little to nurture it, much less cultivate depth of feeling, which requires the resonance of another’s voice within our very bones and psyches.

Social

Dying patients retain their senses of touch and hearing until the very end.

Hearing is passive. Listening is active. The best listeners focus their attention and recruit other senses to the effort. Their brains work hard to process all that incoming information and find meaning, which opens the door to creativity, empathy, insight, and knowledge. Understanding is the goal of listening, and it takes effort.

This is partly due to the fact that people with similar sensibilities gravitate toward one another.

Why we click qith some ndnot others

The more you listen to someone, such as a close friend or a family member, and the more that person listens to you, the more likely you two will be of like minds.

Thinking, Fast and Slow.

children. By the end of our first year, we have imprinted on our baby brains a template of how we think relationships work, based on how attuned our parents or primary caregivers were to our needs.

To listen well is to figure out what’s on someone’s mind and demonstrate that you care enough to want to know.

It’s what we all crave; to be understood as a person with thoughts, emotions,

and intentions that are unique and valuable and deser...

Listening is about the experience of being experienced. It’s when someone takes an interest in who you are and what you are doing.

By listening first rather than jumping in prematurely to explain or reassure in a way that missed the point, the clinician was able to get on the mother’s wavelength so they could connect on a deeper level.

Talking without listening is like touching without being touched. More encompassing than touch, our entire self vibrates with the sounds that are the expressed thoughts and feelings of another.

Listening requires, more than anything, curiosity.

Peppering people with appraising and personal questions like “What do you do for a living?” or “What part of town do you live in?” or “What school did you go to?” or “Are you married?” is interrogating. You’re not trying to get to know them. You’re sizing them up. It makes people reflexively defensive and will likely shift the conversation into a superficial and less-than-illuminating résumé recitation

This is why i try and avoid these

if someone is listening superficially, listening to find fault, or only listening to jump in with an opinion, then you’re unlikely to make any kind of meaningful disclosure and vice versa.

illusion of understanding and, hence, lessens your curiosity and motivation to listen. Without realizing it, you start listening selectively, hearing only what fits your preconceived notions. Or you might even behave in ways that get me to confirm your expectations.

Moreover, when people feel insecure or isolated, they tend to overdramatize and espouse more extreme views to get attention.

Interesting Reason for the divide politically

respond in a thoughtful, feeling way, which is the measure of a good listener.

The world is easier to navigate if you remember that people are governed by emotions, acting more often out of jealousy, pride, shame, desire, fear, or vanity than dispassionate logic. We

Emotionz drive us not logic

a conversation, ask yourself, What did I just learn about that person? What was most concerning to that

person today? How did that person feel about what we were talking about?

speech-thought differential, which refers to the fact that we can think a lot faster than someone can talk.

People with higher IQs also tend to be more neurotic and self-conscious, which means worry and anxiety are more likely to hijack their attention.

to be a good listener means using your available bandwidth not to take mental side trips but rather to double down on your efforts to understand and intuit what someone is saying. He said listening well is a matter of continually asking yourself if people’s messages are valid and what their motivations are for telling you whatever they are telling you.

remaining defensive and not listening fully, you actually increase your chances of responding inappropriately or insensitively.

“Your internal stance should be one of curiosity,”

“They worry that if they really pay attention or really understand the other side’s point of view, they will lose sight of what matters to them.” It’s why people listen to individuals and media that affirm their viewpoints.

nonverbally communicating your resistance by folding your arms,

sighing, or rolling your eyes. We almost can’t help ourselves because when our deeply held beliefs or positions are challenged, if there’s even a whiff that we might be wrong, it feels like an existential threat.

were challenged. Parts of their brains lit up as if they

Explains carlynns extreme agressiceness

but if you remain open to the possibility that you might be wrong, or at least not entirely right, you’ll get far more out of the conversation.

difference of opinion as being abandoned by the

listening to opposing viewpoints is the only way to grow as an individual:

People who have conversational sensitivity not only pay attention to spoken words, they also have a knack for picking up hidden meanings and nuances in tone.

When people feel known and appreciated, they are more willing to share.

Intimacy can’t be forced.

Cant push ppl to open up

English has about a million

person’s native language influences how they see or experience the world.

Research indicates that people who have a higher degree of self-awareness, and a related concept known as self-monitoring, are better listeners in part because they know the sorts of things that lead them to jump to the wrong conclusions and thus are less likely to do so. Cultivating self-awareness is a matter of paying attention to your emotions while in conversation and recognizing when your fears and sensitivities—or perhaps your desires and dreams—hijack your ability to listen well.

“I have a constant inner dialogue that spills out into external speech,”

The research suggests that the more people you listen to in the course of your life, the more sides to an issue you can argue in your head and the more solutions you can imagine.

People’s inner voices have tremendous influence in part because they’re actually perceived as louder.

Our fixation on what needs to be fixed is why some people can’t abide downtime and always have to have something to do so they won’t think about what’s wrong. However,

inner voice is always there and, if it can’t get your attention during the day, it will roust you at 4:00 a.m. Hello! Remember me?

Cognitive behavioral therapy is all about learning how to talk to yourself differently.

support response.

support response, which encourages elaboration from the speaker to help the respondent gain greater understanding.

none of it matters as much as what happened and how it felt.