Latest / Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families / #1204 - Taking the Ride, Not the Wheel: The Secret to Better Listening

Transcript

#1204 - Taking the Ride, Not the Wheel: The Secret to Better Listening · Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: It's so hard to be in the moment when somebody
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: is speaking and what they're saying matters, But our mind
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: is a monkey and it's jumping all over the place
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: and making us think of a whole lot of things
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: that we want to do. We want to say how
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: we can help rather than just listen. Today we talk
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: about how to listen better. Hello and welcome to the
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: Happy Families Podcast, Real parenting solutions every day. On Australia's
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: most downloaded parenting podcast, we are Justin and Kylie Coulson.
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: Kylie had to chat with a guy called Ross Yard.
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: He's written a book called Listening, and today we're going
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: to preview a much longer discussion that's going to be
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: played on Saturday about how to listen. How do you
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: rate your listening?
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: What did you say?
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: How do you know that was not even set up?
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: You were so quick, You did that so authentically, and
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: you were doodling while I was talking that I genuinely,
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: genuinely thought you were being serious. Got me for half
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: a second. I asked ross the question, how can we
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: listen better? And I loved his response. Check this out.
• 1:10
  Speaker 3: I would put that in three steps. First one is
• 1:13
  Speaker 3: don't try to do it all the time. Don't try
• 1:16
  Speaker 3: to listen better every single minute of every day. That's
• 1:18
  Speaker 3: just late. You know, that's just too hard. So look
• 1:22
  Speaker 3: for and recognize the moments. Look for those special moments
• 1:26
  Speaker 3: when you can tell there's a deeper issue. There's a
• 1:28
  Speaker 3: whole chapter dedicated to explaining what they are, and there's
• 1:31
  Speaker 3: lots of clues and hints that people give you, and
• 1:33
  Speaker 3: the most common one is either emotion or that they're
• 1:37
  Speaker 3: behaving in an unusual way. Second one is then when
• 1:41
  Speaker 3: you engage in that moment, just just engage, just be quiet,
• 1:47
  Speaker 3: shut up, let them talk, and just use neutral hemy more.
• 1:53
  Speaker 3: And then when they start talking, summarize. That would be
• 1:57
  Speaker 3: it for me. Three simple steps. Recognize this is a
• 2:00
  Speaker 3: moment when I can do something different and really connect Kylie.
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: So simple when you think about it, and yet so
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: hard to do.
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: I was about to say, there is actually no complexity
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: to this at all, and yet we all struggle with
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: it so much, so much the idea that we would
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: try to actively listen every minute of every day is exhausting.
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah, but I like what he says, Yes you need
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: to listen. Yes, what your kids are saying matters, But
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: there are times where you really need to tune in.
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: And it's been actually keenly aware of when those times
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: are being able to read the room. Yeah.
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: Last week I did a webinar about really helping kids
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: to emotionally regulate, and as I describe what it is
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: to emotion coach a child, I could just hear the
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: collective groans of hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of parents
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: around the country who were listening to this webinar, going,
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: I don't have time for that. But the reality is
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: you don't have to do it all the time. Time
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: being present and being discerning key moments, key moments. Yeah,
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: of course, the more you can be present for your kids,
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: the better, But life is busy.
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: Well, what I love is that once you recognize that moment,
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: the actual main thing to do here when we engage
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: is actually to do nothing. We're not not having to
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: fix a problem, we're not having to find solutions. What
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: we actually need to do is to be quiet, to
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: literally be quiet, to be in the moment, and to
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: hear what sometimes is not even being said.
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: Sometimes when someone's talking, all we're doing is thinking about
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: what we're going to say next. Stephen Covey used to
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: talk about how when people talk and listen, they don't
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: really listen, they just talk and then prepare to talk.
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: And I remember Lisa to More saying, when it comes
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: to the way we communicate, quite often, it just feels
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: like we've got these little, you know, trinkets that you
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: buy on holidays and you put them up on the bookshelf.
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: She said, When people are talking quite often, it just
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: feels like we're taking a trinket off our bookshelf and
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: we're saying, hey, look at my trinket, and then we
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: put it back up in the other place. It says, well,
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: look at my trinket or trink it off their bookshelf.
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: And the idea is, what would it look like, what
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: it feel like if when somebody took a trinket off
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: their bookshelf and said, I want to show you this.
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: What if we said, can I can I become really
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: carefully and closely acquainted with this? Can I touch it?
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: Can I feel it? Can I experience it the way
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: you experienced it. I'm not worried about my bookshelf anymore.
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: I just want to understand what's what it is that
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: made you want to share this with me.
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. The other night I was talking with a
• 4:44
  Speaker 2: friend who has never used Marco Polo before.
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: This is your favorite app? Oh my goodness. If you
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: are not familiar with Marco Polo, Kylie gets on Marco
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: and you and your friends leave each other our long messages.
• 4:58
  Speaker 2: Well, so here's the thing. Yes we do, Yes we do.
• 5:03
  Speaker 2: It's not regular. Our way is not regular.
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: One way conversation. Somebody would just be driving and mark
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: owing you and they'll talk for an hour for their
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: entire drive from Brisbane of the Gold Coast and then
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: send it in you. Then you've got to listen for
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: an hour. It's this asynchronous monologue.
• 5:18
  Speaker 2: So I was trying to explain to this friend who
• 5:21
  Speaker 2: has not used it before, and she couldn't understand it
• 5:23
  Speaker 2: at all. And a mutual friend that I communicate with
• 5:27
  Speaker 2: on Marco had shared it with her and was showing
• 5:30
  Speaker 2: her how to use it, and her daughter had actually said,
• 5:34
  Speaker 2: you know that Marco was just snapped for old people.
• 5:38
  Speaker 2: I love it, but what as we talked about it,
• 5:41
  Speaker 2: I kind of shared with her. I said, you know
• 5:42
  Speaker 2: how sometimes you're having experiences in your life and you
• 5:46
  Speaker 2: actually just need to talk it out. And I said
• 5:49
  Speaker 2: and when you share it with somebody, they're so busy
• 5:53
  Speaker 2: trying to fix the problem that you actually never get
• 5:56
  Speaker 2: the rhythm of being able to just pour.
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: It out because they don't take the ride. They take
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: the wheel. They start diverting the conversation into all the
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: different ways that they want to take it.
• 6:07
  Speaker 2: Yes, and they've got a solution for everything. It's like, no, no,
• 6:09
  Speaker 2: I don't need the solution right now. I need to
• 6:11
  Speaker 2: actually just sit in this pain and have a big
• 6:13
  Speaker 2: winge or have a big cry or whatever it is.
• 6:16
  Speaker 2: And so I actually see Marco often as just being
• 6:20
  Speaker 2: the therapy of just being able to talk it out.
• 6:23
  Speaker 2: And my friends and I both recognize that from time
• 6:26
  Speaker 2: to time we might just put it on speed too,
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: because it's not that they're wanting a response. We actually
• 6:32
  Speaker 2: just need to share it with somebody else.
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, So back to Ross and what he had
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: to say. It ties in quite a lot here. He says,
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: just look the clues. If they need to communicate, they'll
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: give you the clue that they need to communicate, then engage,
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: and then summarize.
• 6:47
  Speaker 2: And I love this. I love this because what it
• 6:51
  Speaker 2: does is it allows the person who's sharing with us
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: to know that number one, they've been heard, but number two,
• 6:58
  Speaker 2: there's a real power in not giving them solutions because
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: in the absence of that solution, what we actually are
• 7:07
  Speaker 2: sharing with them is the belief that they will find
• 7:10
  Speaker 2: the answers.
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: The answers are inside them. I said this about our
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: kids all the time. After the break, we're going to
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: talk about why it's so hard to stay in that moment.
• 7:24
  Speaker 3: Okay.
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: Ross jud is the author of a book called Listening.
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: We'll linked to that in the show Notes. Had a
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: really delightful conversation with Ross talking about listening, especially in
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: a parenting context, and I asked him, why is it
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: so hard to be in that moment?
• 7:39
  Speaker 3: I mean, I would say there's probably not many things
• 7:41
  Speaker 3: that are harder to do in our experience, like as humans,
• 7:45
  Speaker 3: that has to be one of the hardest things that
• 7:47
  Speaker 3: we could ever do. That ability to just keep your
• 7:53
  Speaker 3: mind out of the equation and focus on what they're
• 7:57
  Speaker 3: saying is just incredible difficult. And the only way I've
• 8:02
  Speaker 3: personally found to do it is by this concept of summarizing.
• 8:08
  Speaker 3: So when I really need to listen to someone, it's
• 8:12
  Speaker 3: like a conscious thought process that almost hurts, you know,
• 8:16
  Speaker 3: I'm concentrating on what they're saying and repeating it back
• 8:20
  Speaker 3: in my head so I can repeat it back when
• 8:22
  Speaker 3: they're finished and summarize what they've said when they're finished.
• 8:24
  Speaker 3: It's the only way I've found to quiet and all
• 8:28
  Speaker 3: of I refer to them as monkeys as well. It's
• 8:30
  Speaker 3: like you've got monkeys chattering away in your brain. It's
• 8:33
  Speaker 3: the only way to quiet those voices.
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: Kylie, how do you stay present when there's so much
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: going on, you want to say so much. You listen
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: and then you summarize.
• 8:44
  Speaker 2: So this is the this is the big challenge. I
• 8:47
  Speaker 2: love how he acknowledges that there's pretty much not much
• 8:49
  Speaker 2: harder the thing for us to do than to be
• 8:53
  Speaker 2: present in these moments and to quiet the monkey mind.
• 8:57
  Speaker 2: I love the idea of the monkey mind because I
• 8:59
  Speaker 2: feel it so often going off in my brain. The
• 9:02
  Speaker 2: challenge we have is that when we hear someone talking
• 9:04
  Speaker 2: to us, we're actually listening through our own life experiences
• 9:10
  Speaker 2: and perspectives. We're actually it's going through that funnel of oh, yeah,
• 9:15
  Speaker 2: I've done that before, Yes, I know how that feels.
• 9:17
  Speaker 2: You know I've experienced that or whatever, and we're ready
• 9:21
  Speaker 2: to show them through our empathetic response of yeah, I've
• 9:25
  Speaker 2: done that, I've been there, I've felt that that we
• 9:28
  Speaker 2: hear them, but what we actually do is shut them down.
• 9:31
  Speaker 2: We stop them from being able to continue the flow
• 9:33
  Speaker 2: of their thought process and thinking. So, for me, what
• 9:37
  Speaker 2: I take away from everything this is actually a practice
• 9:40
  Speaker 2: in stillness.
• 9:42
  Speaker 3: Love that.
• 9:43
  Speaker 2: This is a practice in stillness, and that's why we
• 9:45
  Speaker 2: suck at it because as humans we still it's so
• 9:49
  Speaker 2: unnatural for us.
• 9:51
  Speaker 3: Yes, yep, yep.
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: The book is called Listening. Rossjudd is the author. We
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: have you enjoyed this very quick preview of what was
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: a It was a delightful common We're going to play
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: the whole interview on Saturday for your weekend. Listening while
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: you're doing the yard work, or going for a walk,
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: or just having a few moments, maybe strolling the aisles
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: of the supermarket and getting the growth. Don't know, do
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: you listen to a pod when you're shopping? I can't
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: do that. I've got to concentrate on one I'm picking
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: up off the shelves.
• 10:16
  Speaker 2: I might run over an old lady.
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: If that's not even funny, I don't know why I'm
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: laughing at that.
• 10:21
  Speaker 2: That's terrible.
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: A couple ive you said that. That's on Saturday. Thanks
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: so much for listening. We hope that you've got something
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: out of it and it helps you to listen better
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: with your kids. Like I said, a whole lot more
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: on Saturday with Ross and we'll link to his book
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: in the show notes. The Happy Family's Podcast is produced
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: by Justin Rulon from Bridge Media. If you would like
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: more information and more resources to make your family happier,
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: visit us at happy families dot com dot au and
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: tomorrow on the pod, a conversation you don't want to miss.
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: Your child will see pornography. We're going to tell you
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: what you need to know. That's The Happy Family's Podcast
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: tomorrow