Most People Don’t Really Know How To Listen

For most people, listening is just waiting for their turn to talk. Here’s how to do better.

10 min readJun 11, 2023

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Someone is telling you something or sharing something with you. Yes, their lips are moving and the words are spilling out.

But are you actually listening?

Healthy Active Listening (HAL) promotes relational safety and deep connection but, unfortunately — most people are doing it wrong.

Most people are listening to respond, rather than listening to understand.

It’s time to make the shift. Healthy Active Listening can make you a emotionally and relationally safer person, spouse, partner, parent and community member.

How does it feel when someone is actually listening to you?

If you have a healthy listener in your life, think about the way they make you feel when they’re listening to you.

Consider:

how your body feels — perhaps calmer and less agitated
how you’re behaving — perhaps you’re more relaxed and don’t need to move around as much
how you feel — perhaps more confident and powerful and more able to show your authentic self
how close you feel to that person — perhaps you feel safe and trust this person more as they understand and accept you

If you can feel the benefits of someone else actually listening to you, you start to understand how you can benefit someone else by being a Healthy Active Listener to them.

Sometimes listening is the only thing people need.

Your gut reaction is probably NOT listening

So many times — and you’ll probably catch yourself doing this, so be kind to yourself — your gut reaction to someone telling you something or sharing something is to immediately respond.

That’s not listening.

Sure, maybe you’re dialed into the subject matter of what the other is talking about, but you’re missing a HUGE part of what’s being communicated to you.

Due to the way you’ve been listened to throughout your life, your brain is wired to respond in similar ways — that’s why it’s called your gut reaction. You’re not thinking outside of the moment and not considering the impact of your response.

For most people their immediate response is to RESSQ the other person:

Reassure
Explain
Solve
Share
Question

These are all NON-listening responses. They can be healthy communication tools at a later time, but when listening is what someone needs in the moment — you want to avoid any of these responses.

Wait, what’s wrong with RESSQing someone?

This is where you’re going to need to do a paradigm shift, if your gut reaction is to RESSQ someone when they’re talking to you.

If you see yourself as habitually using one or more of these non-listening techniques as your first response, you can begin to dig out of your fixed beliefs by considering which part of the human brain is mostly activated when someone’s sharing something emotional.

Simple neuroscience (is that an oxymoron?) suggests that if someone’s operating mostly from their Emotional Brain while sharing something with you, RESSQing them is not meeting their needs in that moment.

Rather than help them regulate and think more clearly and make better decisions, you may be exacerbating their stress.

Reassuring tends to be a communication stopper — sending the message that it’s time to move on. Maybe for the other person, it’s not yet time to move on and they need to process more emotions before trying to problem solve.

Explaining focuses on the situation rather than the person and what they’re struggling or conflicted with. It suggests the person should give up their feelings and consider why things are they way they are.

Solving tries to move the conversation into action mode, denying the importance of venting feelings and processing. It tells the other person they’re not capable of figuring things out and handling things themself.

Sharing shifts the energy from them to you. Sure, shared experience is a powerful connection tool, but not when listening is what someone needs. When sharing as a first response, you could be “story stealing” from the other person.

Questioning shifts the power and control of the conversation from the speaker to you. It changes the direction of the conversation. They start to feel accountable to you, rather than empowered to process their own stuff.

Now all of these communication tools can be used on healthy ways to provide relational safety and connection — but are ALL non-listening responses.

Even though I’ve mastered the art of Healthy Active Listening, I still tend to be a SOLVER and QUESTIONER as my gut reactions.

“I don’t need someone to help me solve anything, I just need them to listen”

Most times people just want to be heard and seen.

(special thanks to Diane Wagenhals and Suzannah Spanton-Horsey from Lakeside Global Institute)

Confused about Questioning?

So many people who consider themselves Active Listeners argue that asking gentle questions is part of being attuned and showing interest.

But it’s not.

You’ll need to find ways to get out of that fixed mindset. Cutting edge brain research indicates questions are confusing and stressful to the brain that’s trying to process something. Especially for the underdeveloped brains of children.

Maybe you have an argument that questioning shows interest, but if you want to be attuned to what someone needs in the moment of them emoting or struggling with finding a solution to something — stop with the questioning and just allow the other person to share freely and safely.

Questioning them changes the speaker’s train of thought.

Your confusion happens between intent and impact. You intend to show interest with questions, but the impact of your questions may be perceived way different than you intend. Especially during an emotional conversation.

You’ll get a lot more from them if you stop asking questions, and provide the emotional safety needed for them to process.

Maybe later, after the emotion or stress has de-escalated and the brain is ready to process information — you can consider “gentle” questioning.

We live in a non-listening world

Most people aren’t listening to each other.

In households, neighborhoods, communities, regions and across the globe — people are so disconnected because they are not listening to each other.

Healthy Active Listening is listening without judgment or suggestion — but rather acceptance.

And we’re all drowning in judgment and suggestion from our families, our peers, our government, the media and social media.

Paltry amounts of acceptance and authenticity. You’re being bombarded with RESSQ.

Which, again, makes it hard to process emotions and problem solve. The more emotional you feel, the harder it is to think clearly.

When you’re not being listened to your brain is releasing anti-stress hormones (cortisol). When being listening to, your brain releases more pleasurable hormones (oxytocin).

All of this affects you’re brain processing and functioning.

People share surprising things with me

I’ve had hundreds of people — including celebrities, professional athletes, stage performers and numerous others — feel very safe with sharing personal — and even troubling — things with me.

They don’t even understand quite why, but they end up sharing things with me they don’t share with many other people.

I am a trauma trainer and coach and work mostly with marginalized and heavily traumatized communities. For more than 18 years I’ve been “holding space” for people impacted by trauma and I’ve mastered the skill of Healthy Active Listening.

When people are sharing their experiences and stories — especially when they’re impacted by trauma — it’s extremely effective to actively listening and avoid RESSQing.

I have known people for a short time and by using Healthy Active Listening, they quickly feel safe to discuss all sorts of surprisingly personal things.

They marvel at the fact that they feel safer and more comfortable sharing things with me than they do with their own family and friends.

Give them a HUG

When actually listening to someone, try not evaluating or judging what the other is saying, but actually receiving the information from them without the filter of your own values and judgments.

Acceptance is the cornerstone of Healthy Active Listening.

Dr. Harville Hendrix, a psychologist and relationships expert who specializes in couples therapy, talks about Healthy Active Listening by using the acronym H-U-G.

Dr. Hendrix suggests this sequence to shift to healthier listening.

Hearing

Most people take in the information of others through their own filter of values and beliefs. While someone is talking to you, you may be thinking, “Well, why would they react that way?” or “Why didn’t they just handle this way?” or “Didn’t they know there’s information available for that.”

According to Dr. Hendrix, truly hearing someone is intentionally pausing your own internal dialog and opening that filter of your own values and beliefs. Find a way to stop evaluating and judging what the other person is saying to you and just let the information roll in.

Yes, that will take some practice. Staying out of judgment is challenging for most.

Understanding

Once you’re able to pause your own internal dialog, then you can begin to take the perspective of the other person. You won’t be able to do this until you’re able to stay out of judgment while someone else is talking.

In her work with shame and shame-based messaging, Dr. Brene Brown cites judgment as what prevents most people from being able to empathize with someone else by taking their perspective.

And empathy is what’s you need to understand someone when they are sharing something with you. (Empathy is also the best tool to meet the needs of someone shrouded by shame).

You need to lock in to what that other person is thinking, feeling or believing in that moment.

You may not like or agree with what they are saying, but accepting that for them that’s their mindset in that moment.

Meeting people where they are emotionally is the best way to help them feel relationally safe and connected.

Giving Something Back (Reflecting)

And then what makes Healthy Active Listening different than pure listening is the Active part. You can actively listen by just reflecting back what someone has shared with you — sending a message of acceptance, awareness, respect, and understanding.

One you’ve paused your own internal dialog and then captured whatever that person is thinking, feeling or believing in that moment, now you can reflect that back to them to let them know you get it and understand them.

“That sounds frustrating. You really wish someone would have helped you there.”

“It seems you expected to not have to put in so much effort with your friend.”

You may not even get the emotion or belief fully correct when reflecting back. But that’s okay, as the other person will correct you and still be receiving your non-verbal messages of acceptance and understanding.

According to Dr. Hendrix, by giving someone a HUG, you’re making them feel safer and closer to you, which will boost relational growth and development.

Healthy Active Listening is an art

This will become your strongest communication tool. Since people are starved to be seen and heard — specifically listened to and understood — Healthy Active Listening can become your super power.

It’s helpful to know that it’s more of an art than a science.

Giving a HUG and avoiding RESSQing is an awesome structure for this amazing tool, but it’s also about accompanying non-verbal communication (body language), mindset and timing.

Healthy Active Listening is the best first response when someone is telling you something, but then when to shift from listening to other communication and relational tools can be tricky.

Usually the other person’s body language can help you assess if they’re calming down emotionally or in the middle of processing ah-ha moments.

It’s an art to know when to switch to other communication and relational tools as everyone and every situation is different.

In a world filled with noise and distractions, the art of Healthy Active Listening stands as a beacon of connection, understanding, and love.

When you truly listen, you unlock the gateway to safe and trusting relationships that flourish with authenticity and empathy. It’s in those moments of undivided attention, where words become melodies and silence becomes profound, that hearts intertwine and souls dance in harmony.

The benefits of Healthy Active Listening transcend mere communication — they ignite sparks of vulnerability, kindle the fires of compassion, and create a tapestry of shared experiences that bind us together.

So embrace the gift of listening, for within its gentle embrace, you discover the true essence of what it means to feel authentic human connection— a symphony of words, emotions, and unspoken truths woven delicately into the fabric of our existence.