Two questions every friend should ask

Human beings can make some disgusting noises. I recently sat on an airplane and was subjected to listening to a man seated behind me suck on his teeth for the duration of the flight. Another person down my row apparently had an easier time sleeping than me, judging by the sound of their snoring. Slurp. Snore. Slurp. Snore. I thought it would never end. It made me start thinking of other fantastic noises, like how I also become queasy hearing other people brush their teeth. (I don’t know what it is, but my gag reflex insists I leave the room when Chris starts brushing his.) My son has left the house, so you’re spared the discussion of some other popular noises.We can listen and readily remember the noises we dislike… but this past week, I was challenged to consider what sounds I’m missing. We may hear people, but how often do we listen? We’re constantly on the go and constantly absorbing sound, but how often are we actively engaged?[bctt tweet="You may hear people, but how often do you listen?"]I recently participated in a listening seminar where we were asked to pair up and have our partner share about something for 10 minutes. Our job as the listener was to allow them to share, encourage them with an occasional nod, and then summarize what they said back to them. This may sound simple, but it made me realize how many distractions keep me from being all in. We allow other thoughts to creep into our mind. We check our phones. Keeping quiet with just a nod and being able to reflect back a summary of the conversation was harder than I’d thought.Even when we’re fully focused and have good intentions, we can still interrupt or shift the conversation back to ourselves. I can think of times when I wanted to make sure the person didn’t feel alone, so I would interject how I could relate. While there are times this is appropriate, more often than not, we accidentally minimize what the person’s confiding by acting like we’ve had the same experience. We rob them of having their own unique story and subsequent journey to healing.We have many types of conversations each day, but when a friend or family member needs you to help them process a struggle, I think the 2 questions I learned are worth passing on to you. After allowing someone to share with you, perhaps you could ask:

1. What's the most important thing you said?2. What are you going to do about that?

When it was my turn in the exercise to share and I had these questions asked of me, it allowed me to step back from my own abundance of words and figure out what was really most pressing. It was incredibly helpful for me to clarify by narrowing my focus to what truly had to be dealt with and then for someone to move me to articulate an action plan.So many times, when someone asks us to be a listening ear, we think we should come up with the solution. Instead, they really just need a committed listener. May we each put aside what distracts and lean in to listen.[bctt tweet="It's time to practice our listening skills."]