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25-point Rough Draft on Active/Empathetic Listening (on how you REALLY love someone who you value)

Sanctions: 5
Sanctions: 5
25-point Rough Draft on Active/Empathetic Listening (on how you REALLY love someone who you value)
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NOTE: Personal blogs are stored thought -- thinking out loud about something you feel is important. Some folks feel that "love" is either fundamentally mysterious, or something that you can't get any better at by thinking about or understanding it better than you did before; they'll react negatively to the following guidelines for becoming a more loving person (though, for some reason, they might not react negatively to these same behaviors if they were personified in the fictional characters of a novel!)
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1. Be legitimately interested when they speak (make them pscyhologically-visible to you)
2. Be honest about your time
3. Accept their point of view (imagine their roles, perspectives, and experiences)
4. Be mindful of body language, facial expression, shifts in tone, rate of speech, and eye contact (both yours and theirs)
5. Get rid of distractions
6. Temper the planning of counter-arguments (proactive v reactive listening)
7. Integrate your history with them while you listen
8. Ask questions in a supportive way
9. Seek first to understand, rather than to achieve some kind of agreement or positive change (through interpersonally-hasty advice)
10. Let their feelings, experiences or content -- which you either hear literally, or perceive through cues -- inform your responses
11. Offer tentative interpretation (of their feelings, desires, or meanings)
12. Share your own perceptions of their ideas or feelings by disclosing relevant personal information
13. Be appropriately quiet (giving them time to not just talk; but to think and feel as well)
14. Use open questions which allow for a variety of responses (how? what? could? would?)
15. Avoid closed questions (is? are? do? did?) and arguments about facts; refrain from saying, "That is just not so", "Hold on a minute, let's look at the facts", or "Prove it."
16. Be mindful of right opportunites for Why? questions
17. Listen for what is not said, evasions of pertinent points or perhaps too-ready agreement with common cliche`s.
18. Clarify meanings: "I hear you saying you are frustrated with Johnny, is that right?"
19. Learn about others thoughts, feelings, and wants: "Tell me more about your ideas for the project."
20. Encourage elaboration: "What happened next?" or "How did that make you feel?"
21. Encourage discovery: "What do you feel your options are at this point?"
22. Gather more facts and details: "What happened before this fight took place?"
23. Don't give advice until after you have asked for [their] opinions on the situation, as in "What are some possible solutions to this problem?" or "What do you think should happen?"
24. Empathizing does not mean you need to agree; Empathizing does not mean you need to give in; Empathizing means you do not dismiss what [they say] as ridiculous or silly.
25. Listen so hard that it makes you tired -- because it takes a great deal of energy

Adapted from:
http://crs.uvm.edu/gopher/nerl/personal/comm/e.html
http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/HE361
http://www.communication-skills-4confidence.com/active-listening.html
http://www.personadev.com/2008/02/09/10-tips-to-be-a-better-listener/
Added by Ed Thompson
on 3/06, 2:37pm

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