The Antidote to Dreadful Conversation
An introvert’s guide to being a better introvert pt. II
“Most people don’t listen with the intent to understand; they listen with the intent to reply.” -Stephen Covey
As if the list wasn’t already endless, another reason for my reticence is that when growing up, and frankly, even now, I was rarely ever heard by the people surrounding me.
When I spoke, I was shunned, deeply judged, and lectured pointing out everywhere I was wrong and/or ignorant —unfortunately, some things never change.
This alone deteriorated my confidence and desire to speak at all, as I could always anticipate not being heard by those who merely listened.
Listening is an automatic, and oftentimes thoughtless, act we engage with when someone is speaking to us — almost as if a mere acknowledgment that another is speaking.
Hearing, on the other hand, is being attentive to the other person —taking in what they say, perhaps analyzing it, reacting to it, validating it and/or being curious of it — it’s becoming engaged with what has been spoken, which does take a significant amount of mental work and energy.
In my experience, what differentiates the two of listening vs. hearing is relatedness and empathy.
And though hearing takes work with exercising both relatedness and empathy, it creates connections, and stimulates inspiration and motivation, which a surface-level act of listening wouldn’t and can’t reach otherwise.
Seeking relatedness in conversation is the mere act of searching for common ground with what is being spoken.
When I was working at a bakery, a co-worker of mine stated that we must act as detectives with customers, seeking what they came in for, what their envision for their cake is, and so on for the end result of being on the same page.
And I think acting such way of being a detective in regular day-to-day conversations is a great way to find harmony within them as well and help them flux with easeful enjoyment.
Remaining curious in conversation with open-ended questions is, as Celeste Headlee states in her book, We Need to Talk, akin to throwing a ball back to someone who’d just tossed it to you — it keeps the game (conversation) alive.
And eventually, flows to a point of familiar territory of relatedness, where we often find ourselves more engaged, and, in turn, opens up even more doors to explore.
For example, if someone (let’s call him Jamie) was telling me a story about visiting his grandparents’ farm this past summer, I couldn’t relate to any of this story simply because A) I don’t currently have grandparents, nor do I know them that well and B) I’ve never been on a farm.
But, awakening the detective in me, I could ask what Jamie’s favorite memories were from visiting.
And maybe he replies that his grandmother made fresh caviar she’d found at the market and it’s his absolute favorite to meal she makes!
Which will stimulate a related thought of when I was in Italy one summer and ate a ham sandwich that had caviar (which I thought was big pieces of black pepper) and swore to never eat a ham sandwich in Italy again after tasting the truth.
And Jamie says, “How strange of you to say…my grandparent’s farm is actually in Italy, and my grandma makes the caviar for ham sandwiches!
And then laugh and bond over our similar experiences of spending time in Italy as the hours pass us by!
In some cases, finding a related connection may take some deeper digging or, no matter how well we play the part of Sherlock Holmes, we may never find common ground in relatedness, which is where empathy must enter the chat…literally.
Empathy, as we know, is the ability to see and feel from another’s perspective in a specific situation.
Frankly, nothing gives in-depth understanding of empathy justice more than Celeste Headlee, so I’m going to give her the stage:
Headlee states that apathy has grown to be more prominent in recent years due to social media — we see people share their most highlighted and lowlighted moments in their lives almost daily, and if we decide we’re not interested, we can simply mute them or unfollow them completely.
On social media, we’re in control of what we open ourselves up to and engage with, and it’s far too easy to dispose of what we don’t want to be a part of anymore, which soon becomes a habit in our realities as we nonchalantly begin to tune out the things that we find little to no importance to us.
For example, during in-person reactions, we oftentimes assume we know what another will say by certain keywords, which will, more often than not, cause us to tune out.
Headlee continues, though, that even though we may have a vague idea of what one might say, we don’t know entirely.
It’s as if watching the news being reported — there’s various channels reporting the same catastrophe that’s recently happened, but we don’t entirely know who knows what in more detail, who has more recent updates, or who has video evidence vs. not —
We already know what’s in our own mind, we listen constantly to this anticipated chatter, but being engaged in a conversation with empathy in curiosity is like wandering into new territory — exploring what we don’t know, or perhaps didn’t/couldn’t see another way prior.
To obtain a foundation of empathy, Headlee states, we must develop a desire to know more and understand.
Truly hearing someone is also truly seeing them — seeing what lies deep within their minds and hearts — and I feel that when we become eager to find their truths, we find something equally grand: connection.
Something I, myself, omitted when practicing my detective skills alongside empathy was speaking with my own truths — I often smothered others with my detective skills.
Another co-worker of mine from when I worked at the bakery once said to me, “I enjoy talking to you…it’s like talking to an interviewer.”
Perhaps a year later, and I am still beyond embarrassed of receiving this comment, but it pushed me in the right direction I needed to be…more on this next week! ❤
