Listening levels

In previous videos of the topic 5 that concerns us: ¨communication and relationships with third parties¨, we have seen the importance of knowing how to listen. We clarified concepts and nuanced the value of active listening. The topic that concerns us, in this video, are the levels of listening. We will also identify and provide examples of when we are LISTENING WELL.

When processing information, we discover that listening has a greater complexity than hearing, the latter applicable to the sound itself. Listening involves going further and paying attention more often. The attention and attitude with which the dialogue takes place will influence the different levels of listening we experience.

Clarification

First of all, I would like to clarify something. Levels of listening are appreciated in a cyclical manner. What is this? At a given moment, you can be overly involved and listen "well", and at another moment, listen "poorly". Your mood and the nonverbal behavior you perceive from your interlocutor can dissociate the message.

What we are talking about here is that you know how to detect the right moment when you get distracted and abandon the "automatic pilot" of your worries. To be a good listener you must predict that your inner voice will eventually take over, but you cannot allow this to happen if your intention is to truly understand the other person.

First level

This first level is occupied by inner listening. Your interlocutor is talking to you about his latest trip to the Maldives, while you are mentally reviewing the latest offer at the supermarket. Your thoughts dominate you and when you come to realize it, you have to ask, distracted:

• What? Sorry, I wasn't listening.
• We use this listening most of the time, and we don't do it out of our own free will, you are just flooded with worries or you find the subject boring. To avoid "disconnecting", paraphrase the last thing he or she said, take a more active interest: gesticulate and focus on the person.
• How do we know what dominates this first level in our communication?
• When you listen, what would you have done in their place comes to mind.

• You tend to correct, mentally or verbally, your companion. At this point you concentrate more on the error than on the words.

• You criticize what he/she says, because you are obfuscated in your own voice.

• You interpret from your own experience, so no explanation is necessary.

• Ideas that support your beliefs are welcome, but those that oppose them are not, so you will not listen to them.

Second level.

At this level a greater degree of attention is demonstrated. It could be called "objective" listening, because you are really analyzing the argument of the person who is speaking. If he says to you:

• I feel bad, but I will stay strong.

• You will hear exactly that, the meaning of resilience that he is bringing to the conversation. You won't dwell on the gestures, or the feeling that is hidden. You'll just understand what's happening in the here and now. We are objective when we set aside our way of thinking and open up to understanding REALITY.

A mastery of this level is demonstrated when:

• You are able to paraphrase what he/she says, but you still don't understand why he/she says it.

• You do not feel identified with the person, nor do you manage to feel an emotional bond.

• You are aware of their non-verbal language, but you still feel confused because you do not understand why.

• There is a contradiction between what you think they are saying and what they are really saying. That is, you saw that a friend, after stating twenty times that he was not sleepy, just gave up. You did not understand.

Third level.

At this level, you are able to associate and determine certain attitudes that are not being said, properly speaking. You are interpreting silence as a form of language. Haven't you heard the phrase: "he who is silent is silent"? Well, silence and gesture are in charge, by themselves, of complementing the message.

Do you remember that I was an empathic person? Well, this level is associated with empathic listening. That is, you interpret what is said and the emotional accompaniment. At that point you correlate:

• You say you are happy, but a melancholic air escapes you, with every sigh. What is the reason for your unhappiness?

  At this level, we approach the idealized type of listening:

• You open your heart and begin to feel emotions almost in the same intensity as how they are shown to us.

• You infer moods from the voice, nonverbal language, etc.

• You understand what they are not telling you.

• We get closer to the other person, creating a bond.

• Even if their perception is incorrect, we are able to dissuade them from their belief, putting ourselves in their shoes and understanding the steps they have gone through. We see the person as he/she is, without idealizations or judgments.

Fourth level.

Here we are able to listen to the "whole" and a collective conscience becomes visible. We say: "We think you are in bad shape" or "We had a conversation in which we all agreed that you need therapy".

At this point, we reach a consensus. In your group of friends there are disagreements and dissimilar opinions but there will always be a common ground. If we all agree that "the financial situation of the country is plummeting", we have a listener who has reached the fourth level. In a couple's relationship, this level is foreseen when both want to facilitate a change, because they have already become aware of the problem affecting them.

At this point, the coach is convinced of "our problem", maintaining the necessary emotional distance and understanding the action-reaction of the client. The life coach is seen as a person who feels the same but with a cool head so as not to get carried away by the emotional tide. He knows how to listen and sees the origin of the conflict from an objective perspective, formulating the problem correctly in order to reach a common consensus. He expresses himself on the basis of some premises, such as:

• We have to understand that.¨

• To what extent does this affect us?