Conscious communication combines conscious speaking and conscious listening. Conscious speaking involves speaking the unarguable truth with appreciation, and without criticism, evaluation, judging, comparing, and controlling. Conscious listening comes from the intension to tune in to the speaker's experience and draw out as much as they'd like to share.

Communication can act to create resolution and encourage aliveness and creativity or it can act to keep a problem in place. Speaking the unarguable truth, - truth that no one can argue with - instead of giving opinions, beliefs and projections creates resolution. Withholding feelings, judging what is said, blaming, denying, using excuses, minimizing...are some of the many practices that keep a problem in place.

Listening filters are hearing through the filter of the listener's preferences and prejudices. They block and shut down communication. Here are some of the more common listening filters:

-          Listening to fix: You are ready to solve the problem when the speaker is not asking for help. You miss what's important because you didn't hear the feelings behind what was said or acknowledge the situation.

-          Sparring is when you debate everything. The other person doesn't feel heard because you are quick to take a stand, state your beliefs or make a counterargument.

-          Self identifying is when you take everything a person says and refer it to your own experience. You are so busy telling the story of your life that there's no time to listen.

-          Rehearsing your next comment. Your attention is on preparing what you're going to say next and you're impatient for the speaker to stop talking so you can make your point, (or deliver a witty rebuttal).

-          Derailing is when you suddenly change the subject or derail the train of conversation if you get bored or uncomfortable. "Anyway..."

-          Projecting is when you make assumptions that are created by your mind and have nothing to do with what the person is actually saying.

-          Listening to find fault. Everything they say will be used against them.

 

The challenge is to develop our ability to recognize our automatic listening filters. We can never rid ourselves of filters completely but if we can learn to recognize when we are using them, we then have the opportunity to listen more consciously.

Whole Body Listening is essential to listening consciously. It means, stopping what you're doing and staying focused on what the speaker is saying. Be aware of both their verbal and non-verbal communication. This requires you to stay out of your internal dialogue. You will need to catch yourself getting distracted and return to paying attention. It is important to indicate verbally and non-verbally to the speaker that you are receiving their communication.

Here are some things that you can say which will encourage the speaker to say more:

-          Tell me more about that

-          Then what happened?

-          What interested you most about that?

-          It sounds like you felt...

 

Listening For Accuracy.

Listen for the meaning in what the speaker is saying. Regularly paraphrase back to the speaker what you hear them say for confirmation or clarification of your accuracy.

 

Listening For Empathy

Listen under the words to appreciate the speaker's point of view. Identify the speaker's conscious commitment and appreciate their feeling. You are striving to see and experience the world from the speaker's perspective. It is useful to verbally identify the speaker's feelings and commitment. Avoid assuming that you know the speaker's perspective before they confirm your accuracy.

 

Listening For Mutual Creativity

Once you have successfully recreated what the speaker is saying and the feelings under the words, you can stand with the speaker in their reality. It is then that you can offer to speak together to invent a new way of relating to or viewing the situation, problem or person.

 

How well you listen shapes how people talk to you and listen to what you have to say.  When you listen without filtering what you hear and demonstrate that you've understood what is said to you consistently, you may start to notice that others listen better to you when you speak.

It may take some practice and time to master conscious communication. Compared to the time spent correcting misunderstandings and wasted opportunities that may never be realized, the investment is well worth it.

Fully understanding the people you love opens the possibility of creating more together than you could possibly have done separately.

 

This article is based on work from the Hendrick's Institute.

To view short entertaining videos of the Hendricks demonstrating the 7 magic moves for relationships choose the link below. The third magic move video is about how to communicate conciously.

 

Link to Video