“Most people do not listen with the intent to understand; they listen with the intent to reply.” ~ Stephen Covey

The Art of listening 

Have you ever experienced the beauty of listening? How about trying after reading this?

Nature is mildly silent yet fiercely breezy conveying disparate feelings. In this cacophonic world where it’s hard to keep pace with words, we excel in the ‘lack of listening’, not realizing the secret marvels of nature that we are losing! 

Isn’t it is hard to pay attention to the quiet, the subtle, the understated?

One spends roughly 60% of the communication time on listening - of which only 25% is retained! ‘Listening can be defined as making meaning from the sound which is a mental process and a process of extraction…’ as quoted by Julian Treasure in his talk on ‘5 ways of better Listening’, a speaker at TEDx platform. 

But why are we losing our ability to listen? What are the reasons behind it?

Certain technological changes are responsible for this in some ways: the invention of writing, audio recording, and video recording! In this noisy world with this jarring going on incessantly both visually and auditory, it sometimes becomes tiring to listen. Listening is the most important key to understanding or rather conscious hearing…

Julian suggested different methods to improve listening, meditation being the most difficult one to follow. The latter, however, will help your ears to hear the quiet again. People do not enjoy some regular mundane noises and in fact get impatient and irritated by their sounds; if they choose to include those as waltz music or a rhythmic drumming, they would probably fare better at their focus. The bonus would be a fun time for their coffee grinders or sounds from dryers. Moreover, identifying the different channels would improve demarcating subtle from the sharp.

Listening positions, as elucidated by Treasure acquainted me with how we can change our mindset and responses to things if we just shift our perspectives. Elaborating it further would mean if I perceive my friend’s remarks from a listening position of ‘bias’ then even her genuine appreciation would hurt me. By and large, the final way to calibrate your ears to sound is following the RASA technique- where R stands for Receive, A stands for Appreciate making small sounds like ‘hmm..’, ‘ok..’, S stands for Summarize and A stands for Ask. This gives us clarity to soak in the details with absolute alertness.

I was mesmerized to know how I only remember about 60 to 70 percent of the talk and how important it is for me to tune in to the pieces of advice given by him for a better understanding. 

“Listen consciously in order to live fully”