How can we reach out to others if we don’t know what they are going through? Most of the listening we offer and receive is more passive than it should be. passive listening allows a person to hear and react on cue, active listening involves listening to each word, imagining the driving emotions behind what is being said and relaying what you hear the speaker saying back to them. Active listening encourages us to tune in— to connect more deeply and thus engage compassionately.
Unknown to us, our adolescent child was co-suffering with her friend who was being bullied at school. This was finally communicated to us as “I am not happy at school and would be happy if I were at my friend’s school”. With active listing, we found out that the real reason was not unhappiness but out of compassion, she wanted to be there to help. She said “I don’t care about my feelings, I just want my friend to be happy”. The happy ending to the story was that the friend’s parents were able to get the help they needed for their child.
The pain we feel when someone else suffers is real suffering too. Yet, we don’t actually ease that suffering in ourselves. When we empathize, we are able to look for ways to reduce the other’s suffering as well as our own. When we reach out to let them know that we suffer too when they suffer – that can be a transformative thing.
The more
we
practice active listening, the better
we
get
at reading emotion
s
from
words, tone
and also from
facial expressions. Becoming an active listener
not only
increases empathy levels,
i
t also helps to create positive feelings in the
speaker
. A University of New Brunswick study found that people who previously reported feeling misunderstood or
felt
not heard, found more fulfillment when speaking with a person
who
practic
ed
active listening.
Let us s
ee if we can p
ay attention to the people in our li
ves
,
even
strange
rs
. Notice the signs of pain, empathize with
suffering people
, understand them because
we
have
experienced
suffering
too.
. Smile, be open to who they are, let go of expectations and just connect.
If we can s
hare ways that
we ha
ve suffered, that the other person
can
relate to, this in itself will be helpful.
S
har
ing
solutions
can be useful,
as a solution or a jumping off point
.
Not
to
be preachy,
but
just shar
ing
what worked
for us
.
Just as
we
can
share with others our method
s
of easing suffering,
i
f others have solved a problem
similar to one
that’s causing
us
suffering,
it
can be
helpful to
learn how they
coped
. By sharing and learning from each other, we can get better at compassion
skills
.
“
I believe that in this new world that we live in, we often have a responsibility, you know, to actually go beyond the thou shalt nots - that is, the not harming others - and say we can help others and we should be helping others.” - Peter Singer
humor: where do polar bears vote? At the North Pole :)
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