VOLUNTEER TRAINING
Active Listening
In today’s high tech, high-speed, high-stress world, communication is more important than ever, yet we seem to devote less and less time to really listening to one another. Genuine listening has become a rare gift-the gift of time. It helps build relationships, solve problems, ensure understanding, resolve conflicts, and improve accuracy. Active listening is all about building rapport, understanding, and trust. By learning the skills below, you will become a better listener and hear what the other person is saying-not just what you think they are saying or what you want to hear. We believe that active listening is critical to our volunteer training.
Listening Techniques:
Be Present:
Getting on their level, and actively listening helps others feel important and validated.
Validation:
Acknowledge the individual’s problems, issues, and feelings. Listen openly and with empathy, and respond in an interested way-for example, “I appreciate your willingness to talk about such a difficult issue…”
Attend and Acknowledge:
Indicate verbal or non-verbal awareness of the other person (eye contact, head nodding, holding still)
Restate and Paraphrase:
Using you own language, restate/repeat every so often what you think the person said-not by parroting, but by paraphrasing what you heard in your own words. For example, “Let’s see if I am clear about this…”
The Value of Silence:
Allow for comfortable silences to slow down the exchange. Give a person time to think as well as talk. It can be a great gift to simply sit with them and witness their process of discovery in group. Allowing silence to occur at times gives participants permission to relax and just be themselves in that moment. It is sometimes your silence that can most effectively communicate that you accept and value them just as they are.
"Could You Just Listen?"
When I ask you to listen to me, and you start giving me advice, you have not done what I asked.
When I ask you to listen to me, and you begin to tell me why I shouldn’t feel that way, you are trampling on my feelings.
When I ask you to listen to me and you feel you have to do something to solve my problem, you have failed me, strange as that may seem.
Listen! All I asked was that you listen, not talk to or do – just hear me.
Advice is cheap; 20 cents will get you both Dear Abby and Billy Graham in the same paper. I can do for myself; I am not helpless – maybe discouraged and faltering, but not helpless. When you do something for me that I can and need to do for myself, you contribute to my fear and inadequacy.
But when you accept as a simple fact that I do feel what I feel, no matter how irrational, then I can quit trying to convince you and can get about this business of understanding what’s behind this irrational feeling. When that’s clear, the answers are obvious and I don’t need advice.
Irrational feelings make more sense when we understand what’s behind them.
Perhaps that’s why prayer works, sometimes, for some people – because God is mute, and (S)He doesn’t give you advice or try to fix things. “They” just listen and let you work it out for yourself.
So please listen and just hear me.
And if you want to talk, wait a minute for your turn – and I’ll listen to you.
— Author, An Anonymous Homeless Person
