Blog Post #1 9/4

Cassandra Ostermeier

Communication 160

Blog #1

“Listening as a stance is a way for you to encounter the world and others as fully present, with your whole body’ (McRae).

When many people think or refer to listening, they believe it is similar if not the same as hearing; they use it interchangeably. What many do not realize is how different the two really are. For the longest time, many of us probably thought of it the same way too.

I believe this quote has a strong meaning to not only my life, but many others. An example from just every day life that I thought of the second after I read this quote from Chapter 4, was technology, especially our phones, and how distracting they can be. I do not know how many times I have been talking to someone, I have seen someone talking to someone else, or even someone has been talking to me and I have been on my phone only hearing what they have to say and not actually listening to them. The best part about it is when that person talking asks if you are listening, the other person says yes, then they ask what they were talking about and the other person says “Uhh. . .”, “I don't know”, or makes up something. Most of the time, we are wrong when we guess and it frustrates so many of us when this happens; Yet, we still do it on a day to day basis. 

This quote says you [can] encounter the world and others as fully present. After reading this quote and section of our reading, I sat there and thought to myself for a little thinking about how un-present we are in many of our day to day conversations we have with others. It made me wonder how much more we could get out of people and understand them better even if we just took the thirty seconds it takes to have those conversations with others. Chris McRae supports this by saying, “The function of our different modes of listening is to shape the way we might develop our relationships to and with others as listeners.” It can change how we experience people and the relationships we want with them by being present and engaging in the conversation with your whole body. 

References

McRae, Chris. “Compassionate Critical Listening.” Communication Process and Skills.