Active Listening 

I had read in one of my friend's blog that emotions are only thing that distinguished human from machine and I agreed, then I came up with a second line in which highlighter was. we have emotions and that is the reason we have relationships. Strange!!
Is it true? if this is true then we all humans have a lot of emotions from birth but we are sorry that our relations are weak today, so is it enough to have only emotions to make a relationship or is there something else that helps to maintain and thrive it? Lets find out..

I have heard many people saying that there is a store of emotions in the heart, but do not know how to express it, now these expressions can be love, anger, fear, sadness, happiness etc. first of all understand what it means to express, if you have paid closer attention to your feelings, you must have seen that you would have given that feeling out verbally or non-verbally, and for doing so you do not require power of the words, so it's proven that we are not lacking in expressing but in understanding those emotions that have been expressing for ages by others, although we need to listen to  understand them. When we are not listened to, feel isolated and end up saying that do not know how to express our feelings.

Do you really listen our dear and near ones?

You will have an answer that we listen to our near and dear ones whenever they are sad, and bring joy to them and that's amazing. Both people in the relationship feel a greater sense of intimacy, a greater sense of trust because we have been told since childhood that if someone is with you in your grief, then those relations are real and do not let them fade away. But" will you be there with them when things go right? Dr. Shelly Gable researcher at California Santa Barbara, she studied how we human respond to each other when one person shares a positive experience with other, here also we need to listen them actively to gel up with their emotions.

Active listening is a process whereby not only you listen, but by removing all the layers of old/ judgmental thinking from your brain, you actually understand the intimacy of words and expression and feel it, in which there is no scope for any obstruction. If I talk about google definition. Active listening is the process by which an individual secures information from another individual or group. It involves paying attention to the conversation, not interrupting, and taking the time to understand what the speaker is discussing about.

So what Shelly Gable has found is that there are four different styles of responding. Someone comes to you with good news, a positive experience. Maybe someone hunted the good stuff/news and now they want to share with you. So the language that Dr. Gable uses to describe these four style. One is active constructive, 2. Passive constructive , 3. active destructive and fourth one is passive destructive.

Passive Constructive: You probably see that people who is listening barely pay attention to the speaker. They hardly look up from their phone or any engaging work, their body language is not oriented, they may provide some understated support, I mean using expression like, great, wonderful etc. But you will not get the sense that listener is fully engaged with your positive conversation. so that's the first style, conversation killer. So what pushes you into responding as a conversation killer? may be you're feeling little bored, maybe you're tired, maybe you're engaged in something else that has your attention.

Passive Destructive: Someone comes to you with good news and before you know it, instead of shinning the light on that other person and their positive experience, you're shining the light on yourself and your own positive experience, and we call this style, conversation hijacker. why do you do that, some of the common thing is that  their good news reminded me of my own good news. And so, we get just got excited and  want to share good news with them. we weren't trying to steal the limelight. 

Active Destructive: you are certainly actively engaged in the conversation. but you do not mirroring speaker's excitement and do not ask questions instead  you really pointing out all of the concerns and problems, the downsides so by the end of the conversation speaker will feel worried and less closer to you, and  you will become joy thief .Why is it that some of the times, we are a joy thief with other people's good news? Maybe it's that you want to help protect that person against disappointment, but it creates distrust (most of the time our parents play a role of joy thief er who is concern about our disappointment).

Active Constructive: In this we see that speaker and listener both are equally excited, it will be no longer speaker's joy only because now listener is showing his/her excitement by asking open ended questions (How, When, Where) and showing firm body language where all the attention is being centered, that is called being a joy multiplier that strengthen relationship. Both feel more connected.

You must be thinking that we already know these but do not know how to break our passive listening conditioning so dear, I am going to demonstrate 3 As to convert Passive listening to Active listening that so sure will strengthen your all types of relationship.

Attitude

According to the dictionary, attitude is a mental position or feeling of emotion in regard to a act or state.This has a lot to do with how you listen to someone speaking. In order to listen well, we have to approach the situation with an open mind. It is important to realize that what the person is saying is important, even if you have prior feeling or knowledge about the topic that you are bringing to the table. If you have an attitude that everyone deserves respect when being listened to, you will be a better participant and get more out of what you are hearing.

Attention 

It only makes sense that to listen to what someone is saying you have to pay attention. But for many, that is easier said than done. Some people may have a short attention span and become easily distracted or bored, and others may have difficulty paying attention because they difficulty hearing or have a hard time focusing. There are some things you can do in order to improve your attention skills, such as playing memory games, reading and playing an observation game in which you look at a picture for a minute and then turn away and recall as much about picture as you can.

Adjustment

If you are familiar with the term "go with the flow," then you can easily gain an understanding of what adjustment means in terms of listening. Rather than assuming that the speaker should be saying something, steering the speech in one direction, adjustment allows you to adapt to what is happening. The more you can adapt to where the speaker is taking the conversation, the better a listener you will be. If you are not able to adjust to where a speaker is going, you will not be able to have an open mind. This takes us back to the first of three basic skills of listening: attitude. Having an open mind allows us to adjust to what is being said and make us better able to take in what we are hearing.

Now, see your all relations and understand which of the four styles you are demonstrating in day to day life. And practice one by which you want to flourish your relationships.

Do let me know which one of the four styles you wear and why?