The Gift of Listening

  I can recall a time that I was really listened to when I needed to talk to my best friend, Alex after my aunt had just passed away.  Alex is a good listener because she uses empathy.  She always tries to put herself in someone else's shoes.  When I was talking to her about my aunt she was looking at me the entire time.  She wasn't texting or thinking about what she was going to eat for dinner; she was imagining how I felt at the time and putting herself in my place.  Alex gave me so much comfort because I felt like she was on my level.  I felt as if she really understood how I was feeling because of what she was saying to me, and her non-verbal responses.  Besides eye contact, Alex used different facial expressions that showed me she was hanging on to my every word.  She really made me feel like I was understood, and that she could relate to the way I was feeling.
  I was misunderstood by a customer at my job once when I was trying to explain one of our services to her.  She asked me if there were customers older than her doing the treatment that we offer.  This is a customer that I have a good relationship with, I'm very comfortable with her, and we joke with each other often.  In my mind I was trying to be the sales woman selling this treatment and conveying that there were people of all different ages doing this treatment.  I made a sort of remark that much older people than her do this treatment, some are like "grandmas" was my exact choice of words.  Well needless to say she did not focus on the fact I was pointing out that a variety of different ages of women do this treatment, rather she thought I was comparing her to a grandma.  It really bothered me that she thought that I was trying to make fun of her age because that was far from what I was trying to say.  Our relationship was not damaged by this incident but needless to say I did not sell her the treatment that night.
  In my first listening experience, my best friend used good listening skills to make me feel understood, appreciated, and like I really got my message across correctly.  In my second listening situation, my customer interpreted my message incorrectly, which made me feel terrible that she thought I was insulting her when I was just ultimately trying to sell her something.  My first experience made me feel good, my second experience made me feel horrible.  Listening is truly a gift.  When you are a good listener to someone, you are giving them the gift of taking some weight off their shoulders.   Being a good listener goes hand in hand with being a good friend, parent, or partner.  Listening is an ethical act because it is such a supportive thing to do. When you have something you need to get off your chest, you need someone to just listen to you.  You need someone to give you their full attention and just really hear and understand what you have to say.  Sometimes the greatest gift of all is listening, and sometimes that's all we need.