Listen With The Heart

LESSON SEVEN – LISTEN WITH THE HEART

Just as we did last time let’s briefly cover what we have learned so far in the first six lessons:

In Lesson One: We learned that “Life Is Just Relationships, The Rest Is Just Details”, said another way, “Everything In Life That Truly Matters Can Be Boiled Down To Relationships”. In God’s account of His creation of mankind, found in chapter two of the book of Genesis, He (God) summed it up this way, “It is not good for man to be alone” (Gen 2:18). This is a very big statement, as it is the only thing that God said was not good in the whole creation story. We were made for relationship!

In Lesson Two: Also from chapter 2 of Genesis we identified the three principles that God designed us to live by, our book calls these “The DNA Of Relationships”:

1. We are designed for relationship.
2. We have been given the freedom to choose.
3. We have responsibility for ourselves.

We also looked at Genesis chapter 3, and showed how the fall of man and the introduction of sin into the world was a direct result of not following these principles combined with God’s one simple instruction, (don’t eat the forbidden fruit).

In Lesson Three: We began to see that as a result of the fall, fear was introduced to the human soul. As Adam said it in Gen 3:10, I was naked and afraid. We identified how it is some basic or core fears that rule how we react or respond in problem situations in relationships. The author calls these responses a “Fear Dance” since it always involves at least two people.

In Lesson Four: We began the process of learning to dance a new dance. We identified the first new dance step, taking personal responsibility for our thoughts. We discovered that by exercising the fruit of the Spirit known as self-control, we could transform our minds, leading to better personal control over our feelings and our actions. We confirmed that this is indeed possible in our lives, and that God encouraged us to do that very thing as we looked at the meaning of Rom 12:2. We learned that we could create a better life for ourselves.

In Lesson Five: The concept of “creating a safe environment” was introduced, and we looked at five actions we can personally work on to become safer people. These were; Respect The Wall, Honor Others, Suspend Judgment, Value Differences, and Be Trustworthy. Notes for this lesson are available on the blog.

Last week, in the sixth lesson, we looked at “taking care of yourself”. This lesson focused on the need to be in good spiritual, emotional, intellectual and physical condition, and highlighted the need to love oneself. We also noted that the Bible states this need in nine separate places, which emphasized that this is a highly important issue.

Today we are going to focus on the topic of emotional communication, sometimes called “listening with the heart”.

WHAT DOES THIS MEAN?

What does this phrase, “listening with the heart”, suggest to you? The author doesn’t really define it for us. My answer to our question here is “empathy” or “having empathy for”. Webster’s defines empathy as “Identification with and understanding of another’s feelings, situation and motives. After I did a little digging I discovered that our English word is derived from the Greek word “empatheia”, which is sometimes translated as “to experience with” and often as “to suffer with”, and on occasion as “to have passion with”. I say all this to try to get over to you what this “listening with the heart” expression is really getting at. It says we are to do our best to identify with others feelings. (Gal 6:2) {Mention that Christ’s “Passion” is the greatest act of empathy of all time, as he felt the pain and burden of our sin, and then acted out of love for us by allowing Himself to be killed.}

My first reaction to this was “You have to be kidding, how is that possible in all of our relationships?” Well, apparently it is! Let us start by connecting with a basic truth.

· Communication is more than words.

The author says it differently; “The real message is often the emotion beneath the words”.

Have you ever noticed how when someone has spoken with you, and you believe you have understood, that sometimes you realized that you really didn’t understand? That there is some form of disconnect between the words you heard and the eventual apparent meaning. Let me give you an example:

You are part of a married couple, and your teenage daughter, who usually gets good grades, comes home with a “C”. Your spouse says, “Our daughter brought home a “C” today”. You hear this and respond with “Okay, I’ll talk to her”. Sounds reasonable doesn’t it? They are dealing with a potential problem quickly. Then the first spouse says, “It was in Math, she never gets bad grades in Math”. You have the first sign that you really didn’t understand the original message. So you rationally say something like, “Oh, does she have a new teacher or something?” Your spouse finally comes out with “It is the or something!” Now your brain kicks into real listening mode as you say, “What did I miss?” Then the real message hits your ears, “Our daughter has a new boyfriend, and he is in the Math class with her, and we don’t know him, and I think he may be a bad influence, and I don’t know his family or if they go to church!”

Do you see how the first spouse started with something in their mind, a concern about a new relationship the daughter is in, but delivered the message that a bad grade has occurred? Can we see how the simple word message that began this whole exchange didn’t convey the underlying feeling and wasn’t received as a major concern statement? And can we also understand how the ball could have been dropped if the second spouse didn’t go beyond the words and find the feelings?

Now here is another example for us men. What if, in our daughter’s low-grade problem from above, we had responded in typical male fashion to the opening statement? What if we had gone straight from the problem to a solution like, “Okay I’ll ground her until the grades come up!” We would probably be thinking, “I got that fixed!” or even “Bring on the next problem, I’m in full solution mode!” We would have missed the whole thing. Psychologists call this dealing only with “the presenting problem”, and never getting to or discovering the “real problem”.

Okay, it is now the ladies turn. How about if you were the first spouse and you told your husband about the issue as we have outlined. Then he responded in another typical male fashion with “okay, let me think about it”. You know that this situation is actually more serious than the grade suggests, so you say, “Please talk to her now, I’m worried”. Sound reasonable, yes of course it does. But, you don’t know that your husband has something else on his mind, he has had a bad day and just needs time to unwind, and then he will be able to help. In this case, the wife didn’t go behind the message to get at the feelings of her husband.

This non-empathy we have described here can lead to antagonism between the husband and wife. When the man went into full solution mode, he missed the real problem and almost certainly grieved the wife because her concerns were so easily brushed off. In fact she really wasn’t listened to. In the second case the wife persisted in pushing the husband to do something ‘now’, going down the road of nagging. He may feel like the load he has been carrying today just had a whole stack of bricks added on top, and his own wife did it to him, doesn’t she care how he feels?

I hope by using this simple example we can see how not getting to real message can lead to the worsening of relationships. BTW – The new church-going boyfriend had helped the daughter get a “C”, otherwise she would have gotten an “F”, and apparently she was worried about all the arguing Mom and Dad were doing recently!

Now let’s get to the more practical aspects of today’s lesson and ask the question, “What can I do to develop an empathy for others”?

EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATION THROUGH EMPATHY – WHAT I CAN DO.

First – Allow Others Emotions To Touch Me.

I want to open this up now to see what we might understand by this “emotion touching us” thought, how about some ideas?

For me it suggests we can experience at some level the feelings of the other person in a relationship. It can be either positive or negative. Maybe our spouse has had a promotion and we share in the joy and happiness, or our son has lost his starting position on the football team, and it hurts and he is embarrassed.

Just for fun, which famous person used the communication and empathy approach to achieve enormous success? Bill Clinton! His famous line was what? Yes “I feel your pain”. He used this to get to the very top of his chosen profession, politics. He also used it to get other places too! He is what I would call a “master” at this empathy thing.

Why is this so important? Why is “allowing emotions to touch me” so very important? Let us consider the spouse and their promotion. This is the situation, your spouse is up for a new job at work, and they hear that they have got it. They come home, burst through the door, and say with a big grin, “I got the job, the promotion”. And you do this:

· Carry on doing (the meal preparation, reading the sports news, watching TV) whatever you were doing. And you respond with “That’s nice, dear, congratulations”. Can you guess how your spouse might feel? Will they believe you care? Okay, how would it be if you did this:
· Stop what you are doing, joined in the grinning and went over and delivered a hug, or more! And you said, “That is great, I’m so proud of you, what can we do to celebrate”. How might your spouse respond, would they believe you cared?

This was an easy and obvious example to demonstrate that it is way more caring to share in the wonderful feelings than to not let them in. I will say a little more about this in a minute.

How about the other side? What if your spouse comes home and walks in head hanging down and says, “I didn’t get it, they gave the job to someone else”. Do you:

· Look up and say, “I’m sorry dear, that’s tough”, and then go back to your business. What are they to get from that, how might they feel? Do you care? Or would you:
· Stop whatever you are doing, and go over to be there and listen. Not saying anything right away, just look and try to sense where your spouse is emotionally, and “feel their pain”. What is your spouse getting from you? Are you caring, yes you are, are you sharing, yes you are, and you haven’t said a word!

I want to point out something here by using a cute phraseology:

· Shared joy, is joy doubled, shared pain is pain lessened.

When we share joy, or any positive emotion, it takes nothing away from the source individual; in fact the total amount of joy grows. When we share pain or any negative emotion, the burden of the negative emotion is lessened in the person feeling it. This is one of those aspects of how God created life that we sometimes miss. He wants us all to have a full life, where we have great joy and only minimal pain. What does this say to you about how we ought to share our emotions?

When we ‘allow others emotions to touch us” we are demonstrating that we care, and we are accentuating the positive but lessening the negative. That is why this is important!

Second – Listen With Feeling

Very simple to say! Difficult to do well! This is a small thing but a big issue, and follows on from our discussion above. I only have a couple of points to make here.

· The person who is transmitting to you needs to know you care. If you listen with feeling, demonstrating that you feel the pain or joy, they will have a sense of reassurance that they are understood. You might listen by nodding your head or saying things like, “that’s the pits”. This is sometimes called active listening.
· Agreement is not necessary. You don’t have to agree with your partner’s statements, but you do have to understand them. This involves getting behind the words and understanding the emotions behind them, or as we said earlier, being empathetic. Having empathy does not include having to agree!

Third – Discover Through The Dynamic Process

The book uses this definition, “Effective Communication Is A Dynamic Process Of Discovery That Maintains Energy In A Relationship”. What a mouthful! The first thing I spotted when reading this was the word “discover”, and I said in my head, “discover what?” It was a really good example of one of those thoughts I always seem to have in mind, which is “What is the point?” This is a common kind of thinking in men. It gets to the “bottom line” and if the bottom line is interesting then we look for the detail. So, if it is okay with everybody I’m going to start this section by going to the bottom line.

Discover what, that was my question. What exactly does effective communication discover and how does it happen? When I reflected on this for a little time I came to realize that the answer is simple “It doesn’t matter”. This may sound strange, but here is why.

When communication is effective, both parties are working together to achieve a kind of bonding around the understanding of what needs to be communicated. Discovery could mean something factual, like “I had a wreck on the way home”, or it could be “I’m not feeling well, I think I have a bug” or maybe “I’ve had a frustrating day, and I’m a little angry about it”. It could be almost anything. The whole point of discovery is that an emotional connection is made and relationships are enhanced!

Some of you may remember a book called “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People” by Steven Covey. In this book he describes a habit called “Begin with the end in mind”, and this is exactly what discovery is all about. You begin effective communication with the objective of discovering whatever needs to be discovered. There is a truly superb example of this habit, which is actually a biblical habit, found in the life of Jesus. In Matthew chapter 4, right after His temptation, we see Jesus begin His ministry. What does He do first, where does He begin? Let’s look at verses 18-22. We can see that his first action is to pick His disciples. This is because He (Jesus) knew where He was going and that His disciples would be the people carrying out the great commission after His ascension. He taught His followers, He helped them go through discovery over a three-year period until the bond between Him and them was so incredibly strong that they would die for Him. Is that where you are with your serious relationships?

Remember our definition? “Effective Communication Is A Dynamic Process Of Discovery That Maintains Energy In A Relationship”. The words “dynamic” and “process” appear in it. I don’t find these two as mysterious as the “discovery” word so I’m only going to say a few words about them.

Dynamic is exactly what it means, as per Webster’s, “Marked by continuous change, activity or progress”. Serious communication in a relationship is marked by all three factors, change, activity and progress. After all, if all you talk about is one subject day after day, you will tire of the talking and of the relationship quickly. But we all know that our best relationships are indeed marked by changes in subject material, interactive give and take and a general movement to the discovery we talked about earlier.

Process, which Webster’s says is “A series of actions, changes or functions that achieve an end or result”. Effective communications is certainly that. There is always a movement toward the end, which is what? Yes, discovery. There is almost always a whole set of minor discoveries to be made as communication progresses.

One of the great benefits of effective communications is what our definition calls “energy maintenance”. The book says this is where a relationship is kept, “fun, exciting, satisfying and healthy. For some reason, this whole section made me picture a dating relationship. Do you remember dating? Wasn’t it fun, exciting, satisfying and healthy? That was because “effective communication” was going on! One of our author’s co-workers came up with a great idea; what if I listened to (fill in your significant other’s name) like it was the first time? Wouldn’t that action on our part spice up, in a very appropriate way, our relationship? I’ll leave that with you to answer.

Fourth – Work!

I knew this was going to be hard! Our book says it though, “Effective Communication Takes Work”. But all is not lost because this work can be managed through the correct setting of our expectations. The book gives us three major examples:

· Expect problems and misunderstandings.
· Expect that you’ll need a lot of patience.
· Expect a lot of trial and error.

Expect problems and misunderstandings - I think we would all agree that there will always be “P & M” in communication until the end of time. Why is it such a surprise to us sometimes when we have a misunderstanding? Effective communicators expect this to happen. My wife and I have always had misunderstandings, after all we speak different languages, I speak the Queen’s English and she speaks Okie English. We still get surprised from time to time. If we always knew that there was a chance of a miscommunication, wouldn’t we be a little less quick to get frustrated, hurt, disappointed or angry?

Expect that you’ll need a lot of patience – Give it time! Effective communication needs that dose of realism called patience. Sometimes I just don’t get it! That can frustrate my wife, and if she is not patient with me, she might end up by abandoning the attempt to discuss something of importance. We are both losers if this happens. At the beginning of our lesson today we talked about the need to get to the emotion behind the message. I’m not sure that can be done well if we rush our communication. We must expect that the “dynamic process of discovery” we have discussed requires a little time and a dose of patience.

Expect a lot of trial and error – Think of communicating as always learning to ride a bike. You are always going to wobble a bit, sometimes fall off and on occasion get some bumps and bruises. Keep on trying, you’ll get there! If one way of communicating doesn’t seem to be working, try something different.

Fifth – Avoid the Blame Game.

The point of communicating is the enhancement of relationships, to develop understanding of each other, not to point out who is right and who is wrong. Jumping into trying to figure out who did what to who is totally useless. After all you can be 100% right, but your spouse won’t talk to you. This is because proving yourself right says, “I am important, and you are not!” A very destructive behavior.

There you have it, with that message to avoid the blame game, we conclude our lesson. Let me summarize what we have focused on today.

The basic message today was “listen with the heart”, which is sometimes called empathy, and we identified five actions we can take to help us become empathetic.

· Allow Others Emotions To Touch Me.
· Listen With Feeling.
· Discover Through The Dynamic Process.
· Work!
· Avoid the Blame Game.

Next week we talk about the idea of teamwork, and adopting a no-losers policy.