How Active-Listening Impacts Relationships

Have you ever spoken to someone and felt completely understood, recognized and validated? Maybe it was your therapist or a friend, perhaps a family member or even a complete stranger. No matter who or what their connection to you was, what they used to influence you to feel that way was active listening. 

Active listening is a skill and a tool typically used by therapists to help clients feel safe, accepted and heard. But the ability to actively listen is a skill we can and should all be using on a daily basis. 

When we use active listening we are communicating through body language (e.g posture, eye contact , gestures) that we are listening to a person and that we are attending to them. We use validating statements like repeating back what we heard and ask follow-up questions to show that we are interested and want to understand more. 

Brain studies have shown that when a person perceives that they are being actively listened to, the reward system in their brain is activated, demonstrating that the process was rewarding to the speaker. The study also showed that being actively listened to influenced people to feel more emotionally positive about a negative experience they spoke about. This was because the comfort they found in speaking to someone who they felt cared about what they were saying and were genuinely interested in their feelings, helped them  feel more positively about it. 

If we consider the positive effect a stranger actively listening to a person had during a study, imagine the effects it has on us when it happens with someone we care about- or better yet a person we are talking about. 

“When a person perceives that they are being actively listened to, the reward system in their brain is activated.”

We are all bound to encounter conflict from time to time. Whether it’s with a partner, a family member, a co-worker, or friends. How we respond to and manage conflict will inevitably have a large impact on our relationships and the quality of those relationships. One of the most important keys to having healthy conflict, disagreements on confrontations (and yes I said healthy) is having the ability to actively listen to each other during them. 

Sometimes our emotions get the better of us and it’s difficult to calmly and effectively express our feelings when we’re upset. However, if the person we are upset with is able to actively listen without interrupting, ask non-judgmental or accusatory questions, and compassionately allows us to speak, they are enabling us to let the feelings move through us. When we speak out loud about our feelings it takes a weight off, it helps us release the heaviness that has attached itself to us. By allowing another person to exist with their feelings, whether you agree with them or not, actually helps them process them and feel less negatively affected or intense about them. 

While this might sound really difficult to do (and it absolutely can be), the more you practice simply listening and allowing another person, the easier it becomes and the better it feels. Practicing active listening helps you gain clarity on how another person experiences others and the world, which can be really helpful if that are trying to maintain a positive relationship with that person. Maybe you don’t at all agree with what you’re being confronted with or accused of, but you can at least get a better understanding of what that person believed happened and what they’re feeling, then effectively share your thoughts and feelings. 

While it’s very important for us to be able to actively listen to others, it’s also important that they can do the same for us. If you’re the only one in a conflict that is patiently and compassionately listening, it can cause a lot of conversational imbalance and lead to mental depletion on your part. If you find that the person you are speaking to is refusing to hear you, it could be helpful to remind them of what you are practicing in the conversation and respectfully ask them to do the same. In many cases, they may not even be aware that they’re interrupting you or opposing what you’re saying, especially if they’re in an emotionally aroused state. Many of us were raised in family environments where there weren’t boundaries around interrupting or maintaining respect in disagreements, so it can be difficult to be aware that you’re even doing it. A gentle reminder is sometimes all it takes to bring to someone’s attention a habit they have that causes you stress or pain. 

Active listening is certainly not something we are all taught as children, and it doesn’t always come naturally to us to do, but learning to do it can have a wonderfully positive effect on your relationships and your ability to deeply and meaningfully connect with others.

For extra support in practicing active listening and expressing yourself effectively, click the link below to explore our communication programs.