Listening is defined as making an effort to hear something or being alert and ready to hear something. Seems pretty simple, but why do so many people lack listening skills? One reason could be that everyone just wants to be heard, and therefore everyone is talking, so that leaves no one left to listen to those talking. Since we aren’t heard, we keep talking. Now we are just a bunch of crazy people talking to ourselves, since there is no one left to listen.

Another reason might be that we think listening is just about hearing what someone says. As I have written about before, words are subjective and a very inefficient way of communicating. We have to be silent not only in our own talking, but in our reactions to what someone is saying. We have to silence the voices in our heads.

There is a theory of communication referred to as Miller’s Law after George Miller, Princeton Professor and psychologist. It instructs us to suspend judgment about what someone is saying so you can first understand them without imbuing their message with our own personal interpretations. The law states: “To understand what another person is saying, you must assume that it is true and try to imagine what it could be true of.” The point is not to accept what someone says blindly, but to listen for understanding.

I take this to mean simply, stop judging! The minute you judge what someone is saying, you stop listening. You are thinking of your own story. You are comparing everything that person is saying to your own experience(s). That isn’t listening. That’s simply talking to ourselves, or we hijack the conversation and make it about our version. Sadly, we miss so many opportunities to explore new ideas and experiences because we never hear what someone is actually saying, we only hear our stored thoughts and feelings about what they are saying. Now we are back to everyone talking and no one listening.

Suspending judgment isn’t hard, it is just different. We are so used to responding with “the right answer” when someone is talking. As soon as someone says something that your mind can connect to, we imbue our personal thoughts and feelings onto their message. We never even hear what someone is saying. We just keep hearing the same recording in our head, over and over and over. No wonder we keep having the same results to our personal and global issues. No one is listening to each other, only to the programs in our heads. And a lot of these programs are outdated and need to be replaced.

I have taken Miller’s Law and put it to the test and EVERY TIME I suspend judgment, I learn something. That doesn’t mean I change every belief or take everything someone says blindly, but I ALWAYS learn something. It could lead to a change in belief, it could be a slight update to an old belief that makes so much more sense, or it just might be that I reaffirm what I believe. It could also give me insight on how to assist the person talking in doing the same for themselves. When I can stop and attempt to understand what the other is saying by assuming it is true for them and how or why that is, I get to connect with them. I get to try on their truth (I don’t have to adopt it). I get to see something from another point of view. When I do this, I begin to understand why someone thinks the way they do. I get to “hear” where this truth for them is coming from.

I have found it tremendously helpful in doing this to change “communication” to “communing.” They are similar in that both are defined as conversing, exchanging or sharing together, but communing goes deeper. It adds …with profound intensity and intimacy. This allows us to truly listen for understanding.

If you want to be heard, learn how to listen.