Mindful+Listening

__Mindful Listening__ by Donna Brown



What is mindfulness? It is a way of focusing your attention that can produce significant benefits.

====Mindfulness is the opposite of multi-tasking, which is a skill that many contemporary people value very highly. As Shafir writes “our environment with its constant bombardment of stimuli challenges your innate ability to relax and focus on one task at a time.”====

What is a good listener? One who is //mindful// of the wide spectrum of listening skills.

 * ====Receive the spoken word accurately, interpret the whole message (the words, gestures, and facial expressions) in an unbiased manner;====
 * ====Retain the information for future use====
 * ====Sustain attention to the spoken word at will; listening is a process that occurs //over time//====
 * ====Attend to your speech and be sensitive to the accuracy of the message and the possible interpretations that could be derived from it; and====
 * ====Encourage a speaker to speak from his (or her) heart and expound on his or her ideas without censure. This makes your speaker feel valued and respected====

====Mindful listening is already a part of you. However, it does require the desire to listen. A desire to listen involves a curiosity for new information and a willingness to pay more respect to your speaker.====

How to be a mindful listener?

 * 1) ====Concentration is the key to any meaningful activity. We innately possess the ability to concentrate. It does not take any special training, only frequent application. Think of an activity that requires complete, sustained concentration such as taking a test. Your focus on the task is to excel in school. However, the more you concentrate on the process, the more positive the outcome. Ex: reading each test question carefully, looking for tricky wordings, and rechecking your answers increases your chance to get a good grade. If you concentrated on nothing but getting an A, the end result would not be so positive.====
 * 2) ====The average person speaks at 125 words per minute, yet we can process up to 500 words per minute. During the lag time, you can think about your to-do list or you can listen mindfully by using the time to summarize what the speaker has said so far or see the possibilities of what the speaker is proposing.====
 * 3) ====Make mindfulness a habit, we should perform as many acts as possible carefully and with thought. Begin by noticing how often you act mindlessly-driving through a stoplight, leaving the house/dorm without your keys, taking down the wrong phone number. Mindfulness saves time because you think as you act. Slowing down and carrying out the task with mindfulness reduces the chance of error.====