part0013

Have you had times when someone was saying something important to you, and they thought you were listening but you really weren’t? Your mind had wandered off and you couldn’t recall what they said? Maybe you were tired or had other things on your mind or it just wasn’t the right moment for you to give your full attention? If you answered yes, you’re not alone. This is a common communication challenge.

About four years ago, I had an epiphany in dealing with this very issue. I was listening to a friend tell me about a new project at his work he was excited about. I tried to slide into the sincere listening mode, which I had been trained in and taught others, of focusing on what he was saying and his underlying feelings about it, but my mind kept wandering off to some things I needed to do. I’d catch myself going off track and then try to refocus on him and what he was saying.

Now, this wasn’t the first time this lack of attentiveness had happened to me—in fact, this would often happen in my conversations with people. But for some reason, in this particular conversation my lack of attentiveness to what he was saying struck a deep chord in me. While he was talking, and during this back and forth of focusing, drifting and refocusing, I caught and asked myself, Wait a minute, do I really care about what he’s saying? I had to honestly say to myself, Maybe not —at least not in that moment.

Then I said to myself, He’s really excited about what he’s talking about. Can’t I give him a few undistracted minutes of my time and simply listen? At that moment, the answer was yes, I could. But do I care, do I really want to? This thought led to another track, How much do I really care about a person—especially someone I know well—if I have to wrestle in my mind to give him (or her) a few minutes of my undivided attention, especially when he’s telling me something of importance to him?

Part of my problem in the moment was that I not only didn’t value what he was saying, but I wasn’t showing him that I valued him enough as a person to give him the full attention he deserved. In the very moment I was focusing on doing communication “skills” with him, I had forgotten about the overall purpose of communication, which is to make a connection with him, to understand what he was saying and meaning, particularly because it was a topic of importance to him.

This thought of not valuing him enough as a person brought me back to considering what I’d learned since I was a child—that each person is a special being, unique in all the universe, a person of immense and unique value worthy to be loved and respected. That’s great philosophy, I thought, but what about in real life? Surely, if I considered people to be special and unique beings then what they were saying would have greater meaning to me and I’d be able to focus on what they were saying more deeply, more sincerely, more empathically, and they’d sense it as well.

This flipped a switch in me—I needed to practice seeing each person as a special and unique individual, whether I knew them well or not. The communication skills of listening and speaking I had been focusing on were the tools, the how , but it was often very easy for me to lose touch with the overall why —making a deeper emotional connection with this valuable other human being.

(NOTE: It’s important to clarify here that much of the communication in our daily lives consists of simply the conveying of facts or some ordinary bits of information that are expressed and responded to without much emotional significance, such as, “Honey, I’m going to the store,” or, “Did you return that call to Joe?” However, as will be discussed in greater detail later, when deeper emotions are being conveyed, such as your partner saying with a sigh, “I had a very difficult time at work today,” or, “I’m starting to get worried about our financial situation,” that’s when empathy and emotional alertness are needed to make a more internal connection between the speaker and the listener.)

Then I turned the mirror on myself. If this friend of mine and every other person are unique and valuable individuals, then so am I , and I needed to see myself in that way as a person of immense, unique value. Not just once in a while but often. Actually, always!

Let me pose the same question to you: If you were to look in the mirror, who would you see? Yourself. And just by being yourself, wouldn’t that be enough to know that you are also unique? If you were to take a second to think about yourself—and really think about yourself—my hope is that you’d likewise see that you are valuable. Your thoughts. What makes you happy. Those who you love and care about. All those things that make you who you are. And it’s those things that truly make you special. And with that logic, if you’re valuable and special, then the people who surround you are also valuable and special. But in reality, with everything going on in our lives, how often do we take the time to actually stop and think about our value and the value of those we love? Perhaps not often enough.

I knew that even though this was a good wake-up call for me—a reminder that we are each a unique, special, valuable human being—this perspective wouldn’t be my automatic default frame of mind from then on simply because I had an “aha” moment. It would be a skill I would need to develop and mindfully practice just like any other skill I had learned, such as swimming, typing, or driving a car.

But it’s not that easy to change a habit from behaving a certain way, especially a habit a lifetime in the making. It’s a challenge to see myself and others with that fresh, positive, value-identifying perspective. To see the good rather than the bad. To look from a higher viewpoint and see the special and unique rather than the normal and mundane. It would be a skill I would have to break up into bite-sized steps and practice, but in the end would be well worth the effort to achieve.