What is active listening in relationships?

The current blogpost will be based on the question “what is active listening in relationships?”. We will learn about the active listening effectiveness in relationships and  discuss how using active listening skills can help us improve the quality of our relationships.

What is active listening in relationships?

Communication is a vital factor behind any successful relationship. Active listening is an important part of our routine conversations that helps us to maintain and sustain our relationships.

Active listening in relationships is based on using the active listening techniques to attend to your relations. Active listening calls for not engaging in various habits while listening to your relatives so that your relatives feel understood and safe. 

Active listening is defined as being intentionally and consciously involved in the process of listening and paying attention to the speaker. It is based on being a keen observer of the body language, picking up the non verbal cues and asking open ended questions to provide empathy and understand the other perosn better.

The purpose of using active listening in relationships is that active listening helps us to gain the trust of other people and facilitates you to understand the other’s point of view. Since active listening is against the passive process of listening, it is based on a desire to better comprehend others and offer support and empathy to the other people while listening to them.

According to the psychologist Carl Rogers active listening or deep listening is a vital component in maintaining and sustaining healthy relations. Inorder to foster relationships and bring about positive change, using active listening in relationships provides with greater satisfaction. 

Against using passive listening in relations, active listening is more focused on being present for the speaker and not listening with the goal of offering your own opinion or doing a critical evaluation. In Fact the goal behind active listening in relationships is to provide support and empathy.

Active listening in relationships actively prevents from :

• Being focused on your own thoughts and opinions
• Not respecting the speaker and interrupting them while they talk
• Only hearing superficially and paying no intentional efforts for gaining a deeper insight
• Getting distracted and looking here and there instead of maintaining eye contact with the speaker
• Jumping to conclusion while talking to your relative
• Questioning too much while the speaker has not yet finished his point of view
• Pretending to pay attention while not being actively involved in the process of communication

What are the tips for practicing active listening in relationships?

Following are some of the tips for practicing active listening in relationships:

• Maintain eye contact while the other person speaks in your formal and informal contacts
• Practice having a leaning forward body posture. 
• Instead of offering unsolicited advice to the speakers, focus on paraphrasing the speaker’s message with the same intent inorder to clarify any ambiguities
• Try your best to avoid interrupting while listening to the other person. Interrupting often distracts the speaker from the meaning of the whole conversation
• Observe the non verbal cues during the conversation and try to fill in the gap and draw better inferences.
• Shutting down your internal dialogues is much appreciated while using active listening in communications. This way there is a less chance of being biased and jumping to conclusions based on preconceived notions.
• Ask open ended questions instead of asking closed ended questions during the active listening in your formal and informal meetings with people. Open ended questions during active listening give us a margin of exploring deep into the topic and probe more about any ambiguities.
• Be open and natural instead of artificially making up for your distractions during the active listening
• Provide verbal and non verbal feedback. The verbal affirmations are a great way to encourage and appreciate the speaker to talk more and share more.the verbal affirm=rmations are based on the phrases like “mmhmm”, “alright can you share more”, “ahan” whereas the nonverbal affirmations include nodding head lightly during the conversations.
• Be patient with the speaker. Remember that the other person’s view and opinion about anything is only their view and this has nothing to do with your beliefs. 
• Try to empathize with people around you so that they feel comfortable in sharing their concerns with you. 

What are the benefits of active listening in relationships?

Following are the benefits of active listening :

• Active listening promotes trust and respect in relationships
• Active listening promotes empathy and attending skills of individuals involved in relationships
• Listening actively helps people to be good at initiating and maintaining conversations
• Using active listening, people are able to improve their conversation and socializing skills
• Through active listening you are able to better understand the viewpoint of other person
• Active listening validates the speaker and helps them to speak being at ease
• Active listening is a great thing that helps you to resolve the conflicts in relationships
• Using active listening you can know the viewpoint of other person and collaborate to find solutions
• Active listening portrays you being nonjudgmental and neutral
• Active listening can help you to win hearts and turn acquaintances into friends
• Research studies have concluded that people who listen actively to understand better have a greater satisfaction from  relationships.
• Active listening helps us to get over the defensive and resistant attitude of other people involved in our conversation in a non threatening way
• Active listening prevents your conversation from being sabotaged
• Active listening helps us to leave a lasting influence on the speaker
• Being listened to helps the people trust us more and thus creates  positive connection

Conclusion

The current blogpost was based on the question “what is active listening in relationships?”. We discussed the various techniques of active listening in relationships and also focused on the effectiveness of active listening in relationships.

Frequently asked questions : active listening in relationships

How can you improve relationships with active listening?

Following are the ways through which we can improve relationships with active listening :

1. Focus on the person
2. Ask questions for leading
3. Listen actively
4. Observe body language
5. Use reflection technique

Why is listening important in a relationship?

Listening is important in relationships because it tends to build a connection between the listener and the speaker. The listener and the speaker are better able to understand and comprehend each other. Listening without interruption leads to better respect, care and trust among the relationships.

How does active listening lead to a power balance in a relationship?

Active listening is based on checking on the relations and people to know if you understand them well. Active listening is a great tool to discuss sensitive topics and carry out difficult conversations. Active listening enables empathy and cultivates intimacy.

What are the 3 A’s of active listening?

The 3 A’s of active listening include :

• Attitude
• attention
• adjustment

Citations

https://medium.com/cambium/how-to-improve-your-relationships-through-mindful-active-listening-d922be94e2d5

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-empowerment-diary/201708/deep-listening-in-personal-relationships