Learning to Listen Without Offering Advice
Respect the right of others to make decisions you disagree with.
Hearing or overhearing another person’s problem can set up a reflexive advice giving response.
It doesn’t matter if it’s the greatest advice in the whole world, especially if it wasn’t sought.
Also, it is important to understand that the problems initially expressed are rarely, if ever, the real problem.
Wish it were.
That would be nice.
The real problem, being something else, means I certainly don't know what it is. All I know is that you can bet it is deeper than what was shared.
Levels of openness come with levels of trust, and some people don’t even know what their own problems are because they don’t actually trust or like themselves that much. This is a big reason why human interactions are so muddy.
People who learn to listen well understand more about all this, but let's be honest.
Listening well is only partly about listening to others.
It also involves, and sometimes to a greater extent, the need to listen and attempt to understand what is going on inside ourselves while we are trying to listen.
And there is a third important skill to add to listening well to others and one's self.
This is developing the ability to un-listen to our inner thoughts wanting to interfere while we are suppose to be attentively listening.
The same can be said about learning new things. It would be easy if it didn’t require so much un-learning.
Final Note:
We think the purpose of listening is to help us answer a problem or question. If this were true, the smartest, most educated would always be the best listeners. It turns out that the real purpose for listening has little to do with listeners, (as long as we stay in the listening lane and not attempt to fix the other). Give those with the problems the space to figure things out and then they get the benefits that come with having solved their own problems.
