Why can not you listen to me?
Ulrike opened the call as usual: "Man, that was a week!" There was a verbiage, in which it went to a failed hair color, a broken husband, a broken car and two dismissed colleagues. Each friendship knows its own rituals, Ulrikes and mine is: On Friday evening bilaterally in the telephone line is sued, Hamburg-Bonn and back. Thereby: No problem is so tragic that you can not process it into a punch line. As long as we laugh, there is no reason to worry about each other. This time Ulrike concluded with the sentence: "I'm really finished!" According to Ritual, it was my turn: "My week was not better either." I started with my Prada sunglasses, which the dog had eaten, but Ulrike interrupted me: "I'm really bad at the moment, do not you notice that?" No, I did not realize that.
"Sorry," she said an hour and a half later, "maybe I'm a bit over-sensitive, but it seems like everyone's talking about themselves, saying," I have one problem, "the other replies," I have too Yesterday I met with my sister once again, and while we talked, she was always texting people asking, "How are you?" and all you're saying is more than you know want."
"Well, do it halfway," I said, "your sister could not concentrate on anything even before the cell phone was invented, she reads the newspaper while cooking, nails her nails, and blames others for being" Hey, how are you? "I do not consider mimosa as an invitation to a conversation therapy." There must be a right to non-binding in everyday life, it needs such phrases. " The reproach, however, that all of us - and that includes me - would prefer to talk about ourselves and unlearn listening made me think. After all, I am a woman and consider listening to an elementary ability. I always thought I was a good listener.
But: What exactly is it - listening?
"Proper listening is difficult, precisely because it seems to be easy," says Mainz psychology professor Margarete Imhof, who has long been concerned with the art of listening. "So simple that we are constantly tempted to do something else besides, and listening is a highly complex psychological process that is hampered by any distraction." In other words, a brain that listens attentively can not write shopping lists at the same time. And a brain that writes shopping lists can not listen at the same time. If one senses that at the moment one is lacking the peace to listen, one should say that and offer to take his time later, Imhof advises: "The other one will notice if you only listen half-heartedly, and be offended if it is he is concerned about something important. "
A man comes from work, throws himself on the sofa, his wife lies down to him, hugs him, wants to kiss him, he says: "Please do not, I'm dog tired!" What is the message behind it: that the man celebrated too much yesterday and slept too little? That his job just stresses him? That he is dissatisfied with the relationship? Does the man often say he is tired lately? Does he smile while he speaks? Is he frowning? Does he hold her close while he rejects her with words - or does he push her away?
Those who listen, according to Imhof, have to filter which verbal and non-verbal signals of the speaker are incidental, which are significant. He must check the received signals for their meaning, find contradictions, connect what he has heard with what he already knows, draw logical conclusions - and finally decide how to respond to it. Those who do not even listen properly often react incorrectly. And those who do not have the other person in mind when they speak, who can not observe their gestures and facial expressions lack important information for decoding - just like Ulrike and me.
The appropriate situation for an important conversation is therefore "full-face listening", according to listener expert Imhof. Show radio, TV and telephone and turn your face to the one you want to listen to to signal: I only for you! "You can train such a communication culture, if possible not in an emergency, but before, even without any reason."
Our time together is getting scarcer.
Why do we have to practice, which seems obvious - to turn to those who are important to us? "Because two external basic conditions of listening are increasingly rare: time and presence," says Imhof. "Due to the technical possibilities communication takes place more and more frequently over a spatial distance.And our time together is getting scarcer. "
If there is any shortage in my own and in the lives of my friends, then it is really the lack of time that we spare for the other. We do not see each other too seldom, because we have too much to do during the day and are often so tired in the evenings that we only want to make a single appointment: the one with our bed. If we have not seen each other for too long, we send a text message, an e-mail or call - a sign of life that can be conveniently sent in pajamas, while you can also clean up the kitchen: "I'm still there for you " Really?
We believe that the modern means of communication make it easier to maintain friendships. Maybe that's only half the story: the very ability to stay in contact without seeing each other seduces us to postpone appointments over and over again.
The children are in bed, it's half past eight. At half past ten I want to sleep, before I have to stuff the washing machine, watering flowers and make a transfer, stay around one and a half hours. That could be enough for two or three phone calls: Andrea, I have to ask her how her new job is going. At Kathrin I would have to contact me again, I have not spoken for almost two months - which, however, means that I have to adjust to a long conversation. So call Svenja, that's quick. Achieving as much as possible in the shortest possible time means efficiency.
According to Berlin-born sociologist and time researcher Helga Zeiher, there was "a balance between paid and private care, based on a division of labor between the sexes: the men did one thing, the women did the other The world outside was dominated by the private, emotional family world. " This ensured that there was always someone there for those who needed help - "at the cost of excluding women from the world of work". Today, more and more women are working. Private life becomes subordinate - and moreover organized more and more according to the logic of the working world. But caregiving can not be rationalized without loss of quality, says Helga Zeiher: "The time for cultivating relationships and relationships must not be a residual." I feel caught and I intend to take more time to listen better.
What inner attitude distinguishes a good listener?
"The most important attitude is curiosity, interest in others," says Margarete Imhof. "That sounds trivial, but it is not." Especially with people who we know very well, our curiosity goes out, we expect nothing new from the other, so we ignore the new. " After an estimated one hundred Friday evening phone calls with Ulrike I expected the usual: shared good-humored grumbling about the adversities of everyday life. The fact that her dismissal had shocked her, that she was worried about her own future, had not arrived. Maybe I would have been a bit clairaudier if I were not so used to the fact that Ulrike and I are constantly exchanging intimate and irrelevant information.
Is it hard for us to listen because too much is being talked about?
Over the last 40 years, private communication culture has changed drastically. Never would my grandparents have come up with peddling personal problems outside their own four walls. Even my mother was hurt when she found out that as a teenage girl I talked to friends about family conflicts: "It does not matter to others!" If one of the neighbors - who had been living next to us for 20 years without anyone offering it - then one day hinted at the chatter on the doorstep that she had mental health problems because of her eldest daughter or the husband, that was like a thunderclap: I am sure that my mother listened with pricked ears, compassionate, knowing that a lot of bad things had to happen before anyone allowed herself to be so open. In a world that was predominantly silent when it came to intimacy, any information about private matters resembled a captivating confession.
Then came the 68ers, the student and women's movement and with it the idea of emancipation and self-realization. Suddenly it was no longer improper to publicly reflect on how one feels. It set in what is called the psychologization of society: Today, the soul with its abyss most successful leading actress in countless talk shows. And even in real life, many people - at least towards friends - talk about the content of their last therapy session as naturally as our grandparents do about the weather.
Why are we constantly talking about ourselves?
Because listening and being heard are "elementary forms of granted and experienced recognition", "on which not only communicative action is based, but which also form the basis for our identity construction," says social psychologist Heiner Keupp. We do not just talk to tell something specific. We depend on dialogue with others to assure our existence. "We tell others who we are, and each narrative needs someone to perceive them, and we need others' views."
This, too, says Keupp, is a new development. One used to be: the wife of the pastor, the mother of four children, the farmer's wife, the teacher.The identity and recognition of what one was resulted from the social role that life had given to one - and there was little to shake. Today you not only have the freedom to do what you want. You have to make something out of yourself to be somebody and you have to constantly check in the conversation whether the others recognize and acknowledge what you want to be. I talk, so I am. I keep talking, and everyone is listening.
Do I have to learn to be silent, to be listened to again?
"The silence, formerly part of nature, has disappeared in our modern society, we are under permanent acoustic storage," says the Munich-based economics pedagogue and time researcher Karlheinz Geissler, who has dealt with the changed conditions of listening. "Talking does not end today either, it keeps producing new stages of talking about what is being talked about, listening requires periods of silence, and if they do not, you have to protect yourself by being more or less active. "
The boss who keeps talking about his successes, the acquaintance who is always complaining about her children, the colleague who complains constantly about stress - are they allowed to wonder if their listener gets tired of listening? Listening expert Margarete Imhof advises: "The responsibility for the course of a conversation lies with the speaker as well: he must set accents, say, be aware of silence." However, only those who dare know that the break from the other is not immediately used to speak for themselves. Margarete Imhof: "Listening means concentrating exclusively on the other person: not thinking about an answer while he is talking, letting him finish, not finishing sentences for him - not even inwardly." Even comforting words close the conversation because it closes the conversation It is better to leave the conversation open by saying: What could help you? What does that mean to you? What do you feel? Who wants to listen, has to take himself into the background. " Not easy at all.
Why do we want to find an answer to everything immediately?
"A good listener does not have to do anything but listen in. This act of letting go, the apparent passivity, is an unfamiliar condition for members of an activity society where doing nothing is actually punishable and where the break is perceived as a disruption." says time researcher Karlheinz Geissler. "Every waiting loop is bridged today by noises." And does this not reflect what we have completely internalized in working life, where the most successful one is, which produces a solution as quickly as possible and presents it eloquently? Attracting the conversation is a sign of power - even in private relationships. How often do we abuse this power?
Do we still know how precious words are?
Very young children do not know their grief, grief or disappointment any more than crying, screaming or raving. Then they begin to realize that not only the ball, the dog and the bread have a name, that there are not only words for the world around us, but also for the world inside us. They learn to say what's going on in them: "I'm sad," "I'm angry," "I'm disappointed." And one day comes the moment when they try for the first time to explain why they are sad, angry or disappointed - bumping first, awkwardly searching for every word, in wonderment at the fact that there is such a thing: Man can explain, build a bridge with words to those who are willing to listen, and suddenly you are no longer alone. The first real conversation with my young children: a much bigger miracle than the first steps. At that time I knelt before her, I took her hands in mine. If they did not find the words, I helped them find them, careful not to crush their first tentative expressions of emotion with my powerful adult language. When they finished storytelling, I kept quiet for a while, touched by what had just happened: Someone is giving me his heart. That's how I listen.
How often do I listen to others?
