Listening

It's so easy – too easy, perhaps – to lose the art of listening. 

A pause, I suggest, for all of us. A step back, and think about the all-too-common mistake of not listening. To help me become more aware of my listening habits, I picked up a book The Lost Art of Listening, written by an experienced therapist Michael P. Nichols. 

One good lesson for me is the mistake of "Me Too." Think about your friend telling a story of hardship such as "I hardly slept at all last night." Most of us won't devote ourselves to receptive listening. Instead, we might be tempted to cut in and say, "Me too! I was up and down all night." Or else, we might interrupt and say, "That reminds me of the time ..." 

What is the translation of telling our own stories? 

"I can top that." 

That means we aren't showing genuine interest in our friend's experience. Doing so is not going to validate our friend's feeling; we're validating ourselves.