Good Listening is Like Light

[humble soul]

If they dont mind me using them as examples... Truthfrees and Tessa...they arent the only ones of course. Sometimes I can do it when I'm not too self conscious.
But if we can really show good empathy through focussed listening, we bring light. Light to those who get lost in the dark. Mainly the darkness and confusion of their own thoughts.
I am really hooked by this Light theme from the Gospel of John.
We can bring light to the world. Through our presence. Less what we do and more who we are. what we represent. Do we represent kindness? Or do we represent judgement? And criticism? I can be like that too.
so i need to bring light to others,

 

[humble soul]

I think when we listen we tend to shift too quickly into "solve" mode. At least I do. Our brain wants to solve "the problem". as if it's a Rubik's cube or engineering problem.
Or we get a bad vibe from the person complaining. maybe their choice of words reminds us of someone else in the past. A difficult person you struggled to deal with. Add such a filter, and how objective do you become? not much..
This will be influenced by gender too. Women use more intuitive language? I am stereotyping but I can imagine some women reading my posts. Some of them might get triggered.... " typical guy". I might do the same. "Typical woman". So we have to work past out own prejudices.

 

[humble soul]

So instead of being solution focussed. We could try:
Rephrasing " so what you are saying is..?"
Or more empath.ic language.." that must have been hard for you"... or..."I can see why you felt angry at the time". If you can't honestly use such language, might that be a sign you can't really help that person?

 

[humble soul]

I know when someone listens to me I can tell whether they are being half hearted or not. And that's important.
Likewise my listening ability can be superficial if I don't fully understand the person or their situation.

 

[for_his_glory]

Great topic @humbled soul as we are to be the light of Christ in a broken world.

There is nothing typical about you as you are very unique in a good way and a very thought provoking person that challenges us to be better people towards each other.

Word to the wise is be slow to listen and even slower to speak in order to have empathy for others in where they are coming from. The light is to show love towards others no matter who they are and how they believe.