Blog 1-Joey Phelan

The sentence that I chose to focus on is from the chapter titled Compassionate Critical Listening. The sentence states “we might begin to develop a more complex and inclusive understanding of listening if we think of it as a stance, or an approach to experience, rather than simply a matter of hearing or listening.” This is an important statement because it lets us know that listening is more of essential, conscious activity rather than an unconscious thing that we do. Listening unconsciously is better defined as hearing. I knew that listening is something that has to be taken on consciously, but I never really thought of listening as an approach to an experience. That is, I never really thought to myself, I should listen well so I can experience what this person is saying. I always thought of it as, “oh, somebody is saying something important, so I better give them my undivided attention and listen.” I looked at listening more as an essential activity rather than a way to experience what the other person is saying. Thinking of listening as an approach to an experience is a very interesting way to think about this particular activity, because it can make you look forward to experiencing what the other person has to say. Listening to this person say what they have to say is an experience, and a very individualistic and unique experience. That is to say that once the person has said what they needed to say, you and the other people listening are the only people that will experience that particular moment, because nothing is ever said exactly the same, whether that be a change of inflection or change in the words themselves. Next time I make an attempt at active listening, I will make a point to realize that the next time I listen to somebody speak, that in itself is an experience and it is something that needs to be appreciated fully. This appreciation may lead to me getting more out of the conversation and may allow me to listen more fully to what the person has to say.

http://home.snu.edu/~jsmith/library/body/v25.pdf

I chose to include this link to demonstrate that human communication in general is not as simple as what this link displays. In order to actively listen, one must ignore many various noises, both internally and externally in order to give the speaker their full and undivided attention.