Have you ever thought to yourself: man, this guy/gal jut gets me.
Let's call her Sarah.
Sarah sounds pretty darn special. But her ability to see and hear can be learned.
One of the skills the dietitians at Dieture practice is a little something called 'active listening'.
Listening actively
Active listening is (you guessed it) listening actively - listening with all of your senses to help you better concentrate, understand, and respond, rather than just hearing.
The cool thing about it is that you can actively listen to others or use it to tun inwards and be more present with yourself.
If you smell another acronym coming in hot, then, you are right.
ARE..... say whaaa?
Ask:
You have questions, you curious, you...
And when it comes to your relationships, you probably have loads of them.
Asking questions requires you to be engaged in the cnversation, and allows you to dig deeper - be it with yourself, or with someone else.
Reflect:
There are a number of ways you can reflect - summarising an paraphrasing, and using language like "I understand that...", "it sounds like..." or "what I'm hearing is...".
You can also ask for clarification if you want to reflect but are unsure.
Reflection helps you (1) process and (2) remember.
Engage:
Here, you want to engage your mind and body.
Your body.
Use your body to stay present in the conversation:
Nod
Make eye contact
Lean in
Face your body towards the person
Stay relaxed
Your mind.
To help you empathise with and process the other person's words, think about how you can relate to their experience. And if this is with yourself, think about past experience that relate to your present. Sharing your experience with others or your current self creates a safer, yet more vulnerable experience, and allows you to (metaphorically) digest and remember the conversation or inner dialogue.
So here you ARE.
Ask
Reflect
Engage
Now we'd like to challenge you to try ARE on for size - whether it's with an inner dialogue, or in your social interactions - with a family member, a friend, a colleague, or a stranger (if that's your thing). You in?
Note: At Dieture, we train a method called LAPACT. Oh well, that's another article.
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