Listen Like You Mean It - The Relationship Shift That Starts With Listening

Hello, welcome to Stronger in the Difficult Places. I'm your host, Dr. Zoe, and today we have a guest, Gina. She's a licensed professional counselor in sunny Phoenix, Arizona. She's trained in trauma and relationships and has just released her first book, Stop Avoiding It. In it, she beautifully weaves together coping skills, neuroscience, and scripture and empowers her clients to stop avoiding difficult emotions and conversations and live their lives fully. So today we're talking about how listening can change your relationships and your life. Gina, welcome to the podcast.

Thank you. I'm happy to be here. It's nice to meet you and just talk a little bit about listening. I love it. That's a big skill to have. And most people want to be good communicators, but no one ever says they want to be good listeners.

That's right. That's so right. And that's why I wanted to talk about being a good listener, because obviously you talk about it and And communication, you know, when people and couples come to my office, rarely it's like, how can I listen and support my partner better? It's never that.

Never. Never. It's, it's, and, and think about it, even in school, we always had classes on how to talk, but not how to listen.

Yeah.

And that's just how it is. It's like being a good talker is one thing, but being a good listener is a free gift you can offer. To people. And so it's incredible, and it does incredibly change your relationships. So

it really does. And, you know, my experience has been when someone's in a difficult relationship, they're spending so much energy and so much time on learning to be heard, or trying— I should say, on trying to be heard, on trying to be understood. That sometimes they, they, we lose that, right? That skill is lost. That desire is lost. Um, but I just want someone out there who's listening right now to think about how good does it feel when you've got something going on in your life, or maybe you just need to bring up a hard conversation with somebody and they actually listen.

Mm-hmm.

They hear you and you feel heard. There, there's Number one, it creates emotional intimacy in the relationship, but it does feel so good. But we've gone and kind of just gotten ahead of ourselves, so we're gonna talk all about it. But can you tell us a little bit about how you got to even talking about avoiding conversations?

And absolutely. Um, I'm a therapist in Phoenix, Arizona, and, um, have been working with, um, Coping skills. So I ended up believing like, oh, you know, I see so many clients and so many of my clients need real skills to hold on to. And so much of our time had been spent in diving deep into whatever they were going through. And so I thought, I'm going to put together a class on coping skills and mix it with neuroscience and scripture. I have a strong faith-based group of clients. Clients that I felt like that would be the route to go, and so as I was putting it together, I was like, oh my gosh! It is so biblical to be a good listener, and yet we are so into talking and into wanting others to hear us and understand us. I like how you said that, but it's not just listening. Of course, I went into radical acceptance, boundaries, forgiveness. Forgiveness is a big one, and Active listening is one of my very favorites, but finding joy in sorrow. I went through all these different coping skills and put them into a live class and just enjoyed teaching that class so much. My first class with 100 people, and they were all women in a lot of different socioeconomic levels. So it wasn't just people that you think like, oh, of course they have no coping skills. It's like, no, these people looked almost like they did have coping skills. But so many times they were like, I don't, I never even learned about boundaries. I don't know how to establish them, or I've never even thought about apologies or never thought about working with my active listening. And so as I started putting it together, I had been wanting to put together a book for a while. And so as I started putting it together, when I was like, what would I call all my coping skills? I was like, it's just not avoiding the difficult emotions.

Yes.

And so every single one of them is about Facing that, facing everything that comes up in our life and all of our difficulties, how our brain is designed to actually face everything that life serves us. And oftentimes we don't feel like it because life serves us something difficult. And yet we have incredible, an incredible adaptable brain that can, that can face everything, no matter who you are or what you are or what's going on. So it's— Your brain is made for this life, and you were made for— to be a human. And so everything you face is very human-oriented. Although we want to say it's like, oh, it's this, or it's this group of people, or it's this group of people that face it. It's like, no, we all face human problems.

Mm-hmm.

And they're all very human. And we have a tendency to take our problems extremely personal. And, uh, so that was kind of the, the, um, crux of my coping skills book. But it is something, as you probably do, teaching your clients this all the time. So,

so can we dive a little bit into the neuroscience of listening?

Yeah. Yeah.

Tell me about that. What's happening in the speaker and the, and the listener?

Yeah. So I, I first was gonna, First, to dive into the, um, why it makes it so hard to listen is because when we disagree with something we're listening to, it becomes harder because it's emotional. And so we also have to pay attention to that as well. So listening has a lot to do with interpretations and how we're interpreting what we're listening to.

Yes.

That really has an impact on us, and it has a very big impact of where we're going to go into our emotional mind, Or if we're going to the prefrontal cortex. And I think that becomes a really important thing. So when we're in our emotional mind, all I wanna do is all those survival skills of just fight or flee or freeze. And so I wanna be there. And that's when we start with all of our fights. And so we're looking for defenses and stuff. Mm-hmm. And so what we want to do, and you probably do this with your couples too, is using agreement as just finding some things that you can agree with. Even if it's like, hey, let's both agree this is a tough topic.

Yeah.

It can be as simple as that. It's like, let's just both agree we're both feeling stressed out talking about it. That alone will calm the brain down, just understanding agreement. And so we want to pay attention to those kind of things of like, how do I pay attention? Or how does my brain want to— how do I keep myself from going into that emotional center of my mind?

Right.

And so that's a really I think the other part is that oftentimes when we are talking and we're bouncing topic to topic, the brain gets even more— you get more confused. You cannot listen to it that well.

And overwhelmed.

Yeah. Right. And you see this with couples. We see it oftentimes with couples, even between parent and child. It's like, oh, you said that, and then that bounces another idea. And so you have all these ideas coming, and that's just really hard on the brain. To keep up. The other thing that's really hard in the neuroscience behind it is what the thing is about the neuroscience is that keeping ourselves focused on things that the brain wants to pull in information, and as it's pulling it in, keeping ourselves calm and able to like, okay, I don't understand that. So the more we don't understand, fascinating, the worse we are at listening. Mm-hmm. So you and I started talking about stuff that was really hard to understand. People would just lose you. You would just lose— yeah, you just get more and more out. The brain cannot comprehend all that. So as a consequence, as speakers, we also have to make sure that we're able to talk so that the other person can hear us.

Yes.

And even checking in with what they heard,

the

interpretation of that is totally different. We interpret what we hear based on all of our Past experiences, and so that becomes a really big deal as well. So those are all parts of of kind of working with and understanding. So you can actually you talk a little bit faster than you can hear and comprehend. Sometimes I don't know you've heard of those fast speakers that the more the faster they talk, or when you push your and you push your like podcast on.

Mm-hmm.

Um, times, right? And you're like, oh, it's just too much. Or really fast speakers, you're like, oh, I just can't. So those little things do impact our listening. And so even slowing it down for the brain keeps you slower into the prefrontal cortex. Remember, everything fast is going to go into that emotional mind because that's what we're— that's where we're like trying to make those fast decisions. And so that's a really important part of The listening part of us. And so it's a big, it's a big deal. I, I find it difficult in couples. You might find this too. It's not easy to listen to our adult children. So, I mean, you don't look like you're not quite probably at the adult, having adult children yet.

Oh, I have 5 children.

Okay. But you're an adult to talking to your mom, right?

Right.

How well can your mom listen to you adult to adult? And so like that becomes, especially when your adult child has something to like, maybe, um, their view of how your parenting went or how, what they disagreed with, that becomes a really difficult challenge as well because

it does.

Yeah. Those intimate, intimate people in our lives really have, um, Have impact on how well we listen. So that's a big one too.

Yeah, no, that's huge. And I have 4 adult children. I have one child who's not adult yet, but yeah, I have 4 adult children, so I can certainly understand that.

Yeah. So I'm the same way. So I know at times it's very hard for me to listen to my adult children. It's very— because they only see the perspective that they saw. Right.

Right.

Right. That's a hard one to listen to. And, you know, you kind of want to correct them, like, well, you only know half the story.

Yeah, but I want to, I want to go back quickly, but then we can go back to talking to, uh, listening to adult children, which is a whole nother thing than listening in our relationships. So what I heard you saying is what's really important is one, to

agree.

Yes. Okay. So, What I heard you say is really important is first, as you're listening and/or as you're speaking, I guess, try to find one point of agreement, however small it is. Yes. And then number 2, this is what I tell all of my clients. I'm like, this is, this is communication 101. It doesn't matter what you say. The only thing that matters is what's heard. And if you're my clients, you've heard that. I'm sure that I've said that to you. And sometimes it can feel frustrating cuz people are like, but wait, I said this and what I said matters. I'm like, mm. I mean, it matters kind of, but it doesn't matter at all in the context of the conversation you're having with the person. What matters most is that you know what they heard. And so that also goes back to listening. So

yeah,

does being a good listener also include checking in and letting the person that's speaking to you understand what you've heard?

Well, absolutely. But don't you— I also think it's like Um, if the conversation starts to go into a direction that you're surprised, even just saying like, what did you hear me say? Because I am sure you feel this too, but there are oftentimes at the end of sessions that I'll ask my clients, like, what did you find to be the most important part of the session? And it is usually like something totally different.

Or maybe something you haven't even said. Has that happened to you before? You're like, wait, I didn't say that. Or you'll hear your client will tell somebody else. I don't, I don't know. I've heard come back maybe from a partner or something, something I said that I didn't say, but that's what they heard me say.

Yes. One time I heard my, one of my clients was like, you were in my head saying whatever they said. And I was like, never said

that. I would never say that. Yes.

But so I love what you just said because Oftentimes we're hearing ourselves. We're interpreting through our own lens and we're hearing this like, even if you have a negative view of the person and they're talking, oftentimes you're gonna, like everything they're saying is gonna go into a negative place.

Right.

And so that's a really, I mean, that's a really good point to make is sometimes you aren't hearing the person correctly. You definitely can't. It's hard to hear without a bias.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

And that is one of those kind of like things that you have to pay attention to because people will say you're saying things that is like maybe they're picking up on your bias or your—

Body language even, you know, when I talk to people, when I talk to my children, when I talk to, um, other people in my life, I will often say your body language is telling me this just so that I let them know this is what you're communicating. And I was just talking to my daughter about this a couple, I think it was last night or maybe the night before. And I said, listen, you know, as humans, we communicate even more through our body language than we do with the words that we say. And so you need to pay attention to what your tone sounds like, to what your body is communicating. And so I let people in my life know, like, this is what I heard you say without words.

Oh my gosh. Tone. It is. Isn't that interesting? So tone is a huge deal.

Mm-hmm.

Um, it is very big. Women are really, um, we go into our fight and flight in, in as the voice gets more booming. Mm-hmm. And men actually do it as we get higher pitched. Like when, if you're going like, so anyway, I was saying that this is really, so the higher your voice continues to go, they're moving into their emotional mind. And you have to actually take check of that, of like how people are listening to you because If you're noticing that you are just like, there's a lot of conflict, or you're— every time you speak to this one person, there's always kind of moving. Well, it could be very much your tone. And we do struggle a lot with that because, like you said, we all want to be understood. And yet we struggle to communicate in a way that would help the other human hear

us

and understand us.

But as a listener, though, What, how can we respond when we're hearing tones and we're, when we're experiencing body language, when we're experiencing things that cause defensiveness in ourselves?

I mean, that's a great question. One of my, always my suggestions to my clients is take a drink of water. And that's a really big deal because nobody drinks when they're in their emotional mind. And so I always say, like, you You need to drink a little bit. You need to remember your breath, and you actually need to remember, think of your own body systems. Like, as we start to lift our shoulders up a little bit more, we get closer and closer to our ears. We're starting to get ourselves more agitated, and it's very hard to hear when we're agitated. Mm-hmm. And so as a listener, if you could take a drink, if you have a drink in your hand, or if you could say, could we pause and let me have— I'm gonna just grab a drink and I'm I want to sit down and continue to listen. If you give yourself a little bit of a break, that helps. There's all sorts of systems you can do. Even some of that bilateral tapping on your legs, just tapping bilaterally each leg. I do EMDR. You probably do. Yeah. So I don't do EMDR. Oh, you don't? Even if we use that bilateral tapping system, So we just tap, or even we can move our hands like this.

Well, let's explain, because not everybody that's listening to the podcast can see us. Most people who listen to the podcast listen just in the audio. So can you explain first, what is bilateral tapping? What does that look like? And how does it help a listener as they're listening?

Yeah, absolutely. Bilateral tapping goes between back and forth, the right or left or left to right. So you're just moving back and forth. And it is just a calming system, the way the brain calms itself down. So if you think about when you're in REM sleep, how the eyes move back and forth, left to right, this is the same thing that just calms. So we use something called eye movement desensitization reprocessing, which stands for EMDR.

Mm-hmm.

Which is what we use to help people come out of trauma or use to process difficult traumatic memories. We can also use it to just calm the system. So we actually teach kids when they're going through trials or they're testifying just to move their hands back and forth, right to left. Clasp your hands as if you're holding your hands and then just moving that back and forth, and it just calms the body system. So what you're wanting to do when you're listening to something that you're starting to feel agitated at, is calming your own system down because where you're not wanting to go is into your own emotional mind. You're reminding yourself that you're just listening. It doesn't mean you have to approve. It doesn't even mean that you have to agree. You're just listening. And so oftentimes I'll tell my clients to just even pay attention to say, I'm just listening. That's all I'm doing. I'm not necessarily agreeing. Just because I listen doesn't mean I have to agree. Right. I'm listening to their perspective. And this is the time to kind of step out, give the speaker a little space to, to say their words or to say what they need to. It's like, this becomes really way more challenging than it looks because it's easy to interrupt. It's easier to look, just look for inaccuracies.

Yes.

It's easy to just look for the bad guy, you know, in this situation. So I have to really clear, check in with myself and kind of clear my own What I'm wanting out of the conversation as well. So that is also a big deal. It's like, if I just want to find out that you were awful to me or that you were— I'm just going to guide the conversation or my listening towards that, looking for those specific areas of conflict.

So when you're talking about tapping, bilateral tapping, Um, I'm thinking about, okay, what message is that sending to someone who you're listening to if you're doing that right in front of them? Um, and so I would encourage someone, um, which sometimes I will do, I actually will take my hands and kind of just kind of tuck them underneath my, my legs or maybe underneath like right where my knees are. And then I'm, I'm still, my body's still, and I can just kind of almost tap. Mm-hmm. Right, left, right, left with each, each of my hands underneath where someone isn't seeing. Because if you're tapping in front of somebody or swaying back and forth, it's clearly telling them, this is distressing to me. I'm trying to self-soothe. I'm not really, you know, necessarily paying attention to you. Or at least it could send that body language, that, that message. Um, but that's a great way that you could do it if you're actively listening to somebody and you do need some self-soothing. For sure. Yeah. Um, so let's talk about what are those. So you talked a little bit about what you can do when you're listening. Um, and you mentioned something about guiding the conversation. So can we talk a little bit about listening and asking questions? Like, how are you guiding the conversation if you're listening?

Okay, so I think guiding the conversation when you're listening is to try to keep it on one topic and just understanding that there is, it will be a time when I'm a listener, I'm not also the main speaker. And I think that becomes a big problem because what happens often when I'm listening, you're triggering me and I'm listening to you, right? And so I'm going to trigger, I'm going to start going at everything you're saying. So I'm kind of interrupting you instead of interrupting. Yeah. Well, if you do that too, you do that too, right? I'm going to go into all these other areas. And so it's really important that you're listening to understand instead of you're listening to defend. And that is a real mind shift. If you say to yourself, I'm just listening to understand, not to agree, not to do anything, just to understand where they're coming from, that becomes a very different shift than I'm listening to prove that I'm right or to prove that that person is wrong.

Mm-hmm. Right.

It's a big shift.

Yeah, it's a huge shift. And so when you're listening to understand, then all of a sudden you're becoming curious, right? And so you're going to ask questions, which is very different than defending and saying no and interrupting. And when someone is talking to me and they're curious and they ask questions, guess what I get? More open, right?

Right.

I feel a sense of, oh, they actually care and they're actually curious. Um, and so I think that that's one of the best skills of a listener is to become curious. And just like you said, becoming curious, it doesn't mean you're agreeing. You're just wanting to understand. And the more you understand the person that you're communicating with, the more information you have to make your own decisions, to have, you know, deeper conversations with them.

So I love that. It's so true. I think another thing too, In couples especially, and you probably have seen this too, is it is really important as the speaker. Okay, I'm gonna go swing to the speaker a little bit here, but just understanding as the listener, it is hard the longer the person talks and doesn't give you a break.

Yes.

Respond.

Yeah,

that is a very difficult thing. You can only take in so much information at once, and so it is super It is really powerful to slow it down, even when you're the talker, but it's also as the speaker of just saying, okay, I might need just a break for a second to see if I'm getting everything. That gives you a little bit of a break versus interrupting the whole time. It's hard to do. It's hard to do because usually if that's happening, the talker is a big talker and maybe does, you know, 6 paragraphs before taking a breath, which we have that. It is really important to just say, excuse me, I just need to see if I'm getting everything you're saying.

Perfect.

And you do have to come in a little bit and talk so that the brain can actually have a little bit of, like, processing to kind of get yourself into, like, really hearing them. And so it is hard to listen to somebody who talks on

and

on. I mean, it's hard. It's sad too, because I'm sure you have clients like this too. It's sad when I do have some clients that are just outward processors

and

they just—

They just need to talk. Yeah. Yeah.

And, but they get very sad that people don't seem to listen to them very well.

Right.

And so the, as the speaker, the less, the less you talk, the more concise you make things.

Mm-hmm.

The easier it is for the other person to listen.

Mm-hmm.

And that's just understanding each other's biology a little bit.

Right, right. And as the listener who has somebody that's kind of going on and on and on and making so many points, the best thing to do is to go ahead and interrupt, but interrupt with curiosity, interrupt with, I wanna make sure I'm understanding all of this. I need— let's slow it down so I can get this. Can you tell me more about this, or can you go deeper into, into this? Okay.

Yeah. Or if you can go back to that one topic, if like we go back and just talk about the first thing we talked about. Oftentimes the— this type of interchange is out of the person is getting more and more worked up. And so what you're doing is trying to see if you can Bring that down a little for them too, like, so that we both hear each other. Because it won't be long— we're just going to mirror each other, so it won't be long before we both get up there and only listen to so much. You do want to really encourage, uh, just a little bit of a breather or a break so that you can comprehend. And it'd be great if you can blame it on yourself.

Absolutely.

Yeah. Well, it's been better.

So let's shift it to talking about other conversations. Specifically, we were bringing up earlier, um, the relationship between a mother and a child, whether it's an adult, you know, child, an adolescent child— they're fun— or, you know, younger, younger ages. I know it's hard for me as a mom, and I had to be so— I say had because my olders are older, but I'm still doing it because I'm in the thick of Of parenting a 12-year-old, um, you know, I have to be in that space of shutting up, for lack of a better way to describe it, because my response is always to lecture, to share my wisdom, to give her my advice instead of being quiet and asking her questions.

Mm-hmm.

Asking her about what she thinks about something, asking her about how she perceived, um, and then, you know, an encounter or an engagement, asking her about her experience. Um, it's hard for me as a mom, but I feel like now, you know, I've been doing this for 20-some years, I've, I've gotten some skills in it. Um,

yeah.

So can we talk a little bit about that?

I love that because I think the point you make is great. It's like, just the less you say with the older ones, The better it is. They do already. Oh no, they have our lectures memorized already. They do. So it is one of those things that I think we respond out of fear, and it is a fear thing that comes up for ourselves as moms of just like, I'm scared they're going to make the wrong decision or a bad decision, or they won't know how to fix it or something. And so all of that comes up for all of us, and I think that's just I mean, unfortunately, we just are wired for fear as moms. You know, we're just scared for them and we want the best for them. So I think it comes up through a really good place.

Sure.

But it is such an incredible gift to offer, is to just be quiet and to say less.

Okay.

And to see if you can get to a place of just letting them kind of make their own decisions and you just kind of even asking them the questions. To help them find their way. I think that's the hard part about being a mom is they're all different ways and sometimes it's not your way and that's, that is a kind of a complicated place to be, but it's such a powerful gift to give to our kids is to listen.

Mm-hmm.

Like, it's, it's once again such a beautiful, it's, it's funny, I have a 12-year-old. I remember when that is. And they're such talkers.

Oh my goodness, my daughter.

Yeah, especially girls. And they're talkers, right? And they're telling you all these long stories, you know. It's so precious because it doesn't last that long.

I know.

It's hard to stay focused, you know. And so it's hard, but it's so, so sweet because you start to see their mind just really— they are in a big long story of And, oh, it's, it's sweet, but it is, it, I find it difficult at times to, um, really tackle my own fear of what I want for the kids and to listen to things that I just disagree with.

Right.

Um, I have this phrase for my adult kids that I say, if anyone can do it, you can do it, which kind of means nothing.

Right.

So sometimes I just like, like to go there, right? It's just like, if anyone can do it, you can do it. Now, if they can't end up doing it, well, if anyone could have done it, they would have been able to do it. But if they couldn't, then I'm fine too. So I feel like that less opinionated perspective—

Mhmm.

Become even more important in our listening with people that we care about and we, we love and we do care about their choices.

Hmm.

So that becomes a really incredible thing. Um, a couple of the scriptures that I have that go with there is out of Proverbs. It says, let the wise listen and add to their learning, and let the discerning get guidance. And I love that because it's like, let the wise listen. And the more you listen, the wiser you become because you're able to work through a lot of your emotional regulation. You are able to grow yourself and learning how to regulate even when you are starting to get scared.

Yes.

You can pull yourself back into a more regulated place. So listening becomes an extremely good power to have because it helps you practice the stuff that we need, which is emotional regulation all the time. So we need that. And so that even paying attention to how wise it is Listen.

Yeah.

Um, and how foolish it is to talk too much.

Yep. Well, because when you're listening, you're gaining information. When you're talking, you're just spewing whatever, you know, maybe in your brain. Um, but it, it just makes so much sense that the wise listen. How else do you learn and understand if you're just talking to someone constantly? You've actually learned nothing about them. Now, maybe they've learned something about you, but you haven't learned anything about them.

And you kind of will leave a conversation if you've done too much of the talking, feeling rather empty, because as another human, you do want to learn when you're with somebody else. And so even though it seems like I'm always listening and stuff, if you are an always listening kind of person, Like, that is very cool to be able to be there because that means you have been able to face a lot of different emotions as you've listened and kept yourself really calm and cool. But it's also a real invitation to allow the other person to listen to you too. Mm-hmm. And so it's becoming like being able to give the gift of, of giving that back and forth because this kind of conversation is just powerful for Every human to go back and forth listening into speaking.

Mm-hmm. So what's one last word of advice that you could give a woman who's listening to this and realizing, I might have difficulty listening in my relationships? Um, and maybe I have some really good reasons for that. What, how do I get better at this? What's a first step? And Will it really benefit me?

Well, the benefit is really— you'll benefit. Okay, let's start with benefits because the benefits you get from being a good listener is connection. And that's a really cool thing to be able to do. I'm sure you and I and everybody listening can— they have a friend that listens well to them. There is— that is a gift, a gift. And if you can be that kind of a mom or even that kind of a partner that you can actually listen when it's hard,

I

don't even mind if you listen and say, this is really hard for me to listen to. But I really want to listen. I really want to understand where you're coming from. Um, that is— that even just naming that emotion for yourself when you are listening becomes really powerful. So. Even using the benefits of, like, really our ultimate goal is connection. Our ultimate goal as humans is that you're gonna do so much better in life using connection and thriving in your connection. And so when you feel like you don't have— and so I often have this, like, clients will say, I don't have many friends. I'm struggling to connect with people. I often will say, how good of a listener are you? Mm-hmm. Are you listening to people? Are you asking them questions? Are you using your curiosity? You using— I like how you brought up your verbal and your nonverbal cues.

Yeah.

Are you leaning in? Do you act interested? So those little things can help a lot. So is it— so first of all, that's how it benefits you. It grows your connections. It also helps you in your emotional regulation, but then When you, at the beginning of that question was like, how do I even start? And what would that even look like?

Yeah.

Um, it's like, okay, how you start is like, I really want to hear what you have to say.

Mm-hmm.

You start with asking questions. If someone isn't forcing you to listen to them, that becomes a really important thing. It's like, I'm just curious of how you see that, or I'm just curious about what is going on for you when that happens. Or those kind of questions, those open-ended questions open up a conversation for you. And so that becomes really important. It's like asking good questions that people can dive into and connect with you a little bit. And those, those take a little while, but you start to understand like little ways that you can connect to somebody. Maybe you find a common interest with somebody and those conversations will help. So any sort of ways that you can promote listening becomes such a valuable skill.

Right.

And so, and, and what's the difference between active listening and passive listening? I would say passive listening we can do often while we're scrolling on our phone. That does leave the other person very empty as well. And so we can passively listen while we're You know, do busy doing things and active listening actually takes an active role in listening to them of like looking at them, paying attention, nodding your head, understanding what you're listening and talking about. And so that becomes a, that is, it's a very active, non-passive way to listen to someone versus just sitting there, you know, listening.

Yes. Yeah, that makes sense.

There's 2 ways to listen.

Yeah. And, you know, for a woman out there who's feeling very unheard in her relationship and the thought of listening feels like too much, I just want to encourage her that it doesn't have to be an either or. What I mean is that you actually choosing to listen to your partner, even if you don't feel your partner is listening to you is modeling behavior that you want also. And although, you know, I don't suggest continuing to give in a relationship when there's no reciprocity, I think at some point we have to kind of mirror back what's given to us, or at least we need to make sure that it's reciprocal. It may be something to just try to implement in your relationship and seeing if your active listening Or I should say, seeing how you're active listening, um, affects the relationship.

Totally agree. I think also even complimenting people when they do listen to you, of just, it means a lot to me that you just, that you just heard me. That means a lot to somebody. So in a, in a difficult, um, couple relationship, oftentimes They don't give much appreciation to each other about anything.

Right.

And so when we want to increase something in our relationship by appreciating when somebody does offer us a little bit of listening, that alone will start helping growing our listening kind of relationship.

Yes.

Oftentimes we've just moved into only listening to prove myself to be right or For me to prove that you're a jerk.

Right. Yes.

And if that's the only reason I'm listening to you is so I can one more time prove to myself that you are the jerk I believe you are, that becomes a difficult, that's a bad interpretation of listening. 'Cause I'm not really trying to listen to understand. I'm just listening to, um, prove my point.

Right. Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Thank you so much for sharing. Can you tell, uh, my listeners how they can find you?

Absolutely. I'm on Instagram under Mindhelm, M-I-N-D-H-E-L-M, and I'm also, um, on mindhelm.org as well. But I have a coping skills class and a little online class, and of course my book Stop Avoiding It, um, on Amazon. So it's like a bunch of different skills, but I do go over active listening a lot in that. Um, book too. So

wonderful. Thank you so much. All of that will be in the show notes, and it was a wonderful conversation. Thank you for coming on.

Thank you so much. It was fun.