Hi, I’m Ilia Jones, licensed professional counselor, and I’m here to talk to you about one half of communication, the listening half. We are sometimes very good at talking and expressing our feelings, but we are usually not very good at listening when somebody else is talking and expressing their feelings. One really important skill that you can learn is reflective listening, which is what you’ve heard people say sometimes; it kind of sounds funny: “What I hear you saying is blah blah blah.”

I recommend that you use your own words so you are not just repeating and parroting back what the other person just said, because that sometimes ends up sounding a little bit insincere or sarcastic. You can paraphrase and put it in your own words. It is also really important to capture what the feeling or the emotion is that the other person is trying to express, and to see if there is any part of what they are saying that you can agree with. This is called disarming.

If my spouse is complaining about something I did, I could defend myself or rationalize, but they will not feel listened to or heard. So it is really important to paraphrase, summarize, figure out what the feeling word is they are trying to tell me about, and agree with even a small part of it if I can. That would be really helpful.

It is also really important not to end all of that excellent listening by saying “but” and then explaining or defending or rationalizing. That is better said in about 20 minutes or maybe the next day. When you are listening, it is important to only listen and not be trying to figure out how to argue back. So, I hope this information is helpful.