Did You Hear What I Didn't Say?

I teach active, empathic listening to grad students.  Many of them are highly skilled, multi-talented computer scientists from universities around the globe.

Team member's stress

When we listen accurately, everyone benefits.  We can better understand

• our client's needs
• our supervisor's instructions
• our team member's stress.

Showing awareness of unspoken feelings can hasten connection and problem-solving in difficult situations.

Empathic listening might involve guessing at a person's underlying feelings and tentatively reflecting those feelings back.  Since our emotional vocabulary might be limited to Seseme Street feelings, I provide students with lists of emotions and ask them to identify the feelings they have had in the last day, week, or month.

After the students learn and roleplay responding with empathy, I  pull troubling statements out of a bag and go around the circle, asking each student to respond to a different statement.  These are all real statements that people have said to me.

1. Young adult:  “I hate it when my parents’ friends ask me what I’m going to do with my life.  I don’t know what I want to do yet and they really want me to know.”
2. Friend:  “I spilled coffee on my keyboard.  Fried everything."
3. Friend:  “My mom’s in the psycho ward.  She tried to overdose."
4. Friend:  "My husband's so depressed, he hung a noose from a rafter in the hall.  Every day when I come home, I climb up on a ladder and cut it down.  The next day, it's up again."

The exercise is hard, but particularly hard for some of my foreign students.  Maybe they can't imagine that there is an underlying, unspoken feeling, and probably, the exercise makes no sense to them.

After my last workshop.  I asked one of my students how he felt about the class.

"It was interesting," he said.

"If one of your friends back home told you about a personal problem, what's the first thing you would say?" I asked.

"I'd say, 'thank you,' to my friend."

"Thank you?"

"It's so unusual," he said, "for someone to tell me a problem that I'd say thank you to them - thank you for trusting me with the problem."

 Thank you, my student for giving me that information. It will help me teach this unit. 

Possible Answers
Seriously, there's no "right" answer.  Just try to imagine what the other person is going through and reflect it back.  Read their body language if you can.  This response is just a first step in a longer conversation.  Also, be mindful of really really bad stuff and let your response reflect that awareness.
1.  "That must be embarrassing for you - to not be able to give them an answer."
2.  "Oh crap!! That's awful.  You must feel so mad at yourself."
3.  "You must be so shocked and worried."
4.  "Maybe he's trying to tell you something."   -- no just kidding, that would be a terrible response -- How about, "You must be afraid to go home."  or  "It sounds like you are feeling completely helpless."

(I want to cry thinking of these examples.  Please, shoot me an empathic response.)

What's the Best Thing to Say to a Troubled Person?

Statement:  "Every time I drive along that highway, I think about turning sharply and going over the edge."

Response:  "Don't do that.  Your insurance will go up if you total your car."

Statement:  "My mom overdosed last night.  She's in the psych ward now."

Response:  " "Your mom is in the psycho ward?  Yup, sounds about right."

Statement:  "My husband is so depressed, he cut a hole in the ceiling so that he could hang a rope from the joist.  Every day, when I come home from work, I climb up on a chair and cut the rope down."

Response:  "Sounds like he's bi-polar. Hey, have you heard this one?  How many manic-depressives does it take to change a light bulb?  Two. One to get the ladder -- and one to get the rope."

Have you ever heard a troubling statement from someone?  You might immediately give the person advice.  You might say something encouraging like, "Don't worry.  You'll be fine.  Everything will work out."  Maybe your first response is, "I'm sorry to hear that."  Maybe you make an offhand comment or inappropriate joke like the ones above.  These responses are not helpful.  These responses might leave the troubled person  feeling rejected, judged, barraged, isolated, and angry.  The troubled person shuts down and does not want to share any further.

So what can you say when you care about a person and want to help?

Hear what the other person is feeling and reflect it back.  This is just the first step but it is the most important.  You want the other person to know that you hear and are trying to understand.  You are not going to barrage them with your interpretations and advice.  You are not going to tell them your feelings, at least not yet.  "I'm sorry to hear that" is about your feelings and focuses on you, not the other person.  "You'll be fine" tells the other person that you do not want to deal with their problem.  "Everything will work out" is a brush-off.

Use one of these sentence starters:

• I guess you're feeling . . .  Is that it?
• You seem . . . 
• It sounds like . . . Is that it?
• I guess you wish . . . Is that it?
• You sound upset (angry, frustrated).  What's up?
• You seem worried that ... is going to happen.  Is that it?

Tentatively suggest a feeling.  If you want to expand your vocabulary of emotions, here is the NVC list of feelings.

If you really, really want to give advice so that the other person will actually hear you, say

1.  So you’re saying . . . [paraphrase their thoughts and feelings about the problem]
2.  What have you tried so far?
3.  How did that work?
4.  What else have you considered? 

Chances are the troubled person has thought more about his or her problem than you have.  With these questions, you will get a chance to understand the problem more deeply and see what real or imagined barriers keep the person stuck in their problem.  Finally, you can say:

Do you want to know what I think? or
Do you want to know what I did when that happened to me?

There's a chance they might say "yes."  They now feel understood and have agreed to listen to your ideas.

Listening is difficult.  It takes practice.
What troubling statements have you heard?  How did you answer?
Do you hate when people give you unasked-for advice or tell you to relax?