Reflective Listening Skills

We hear, provided our hearing is healthy, but we often don't listen. Here's the definition and explanation what hearing is:

Humans can generally hear sounds with frequencies between 20 Hz and 20 kHz. Human hearing is able to discriminate small differences in loudness (intensity) and pitch (frequency) over that large range of audible sound. This healthy human range of frequency detection varies significantly with age, occupational hearing damage, and gender; some individuals are able to hear pitches up to 22 kHz and perhaps beyond, while others are limited to about 16 kHz. The ability of most adults to hear sounds above about 8 kHz begins to deteriorate in early middle age.

When we hear something, it's just sound waves reaching our ears and then being forwarded to our brain. If we are ACTIVELY listening, then we absorb what we hear, we think about it and we store it in our short term memory, maybe we will later even add it to our long term memory. To listen is an active effort, hearing is passive.

An active listener is what we all like. If somebody is listening to you, you feel good, you get the impression that your conversation partner is valueing what you say and that he takes your words seriously. Developing listening skills is important, and with just a little effort and the right techniques, everybody can master this valuable skill in a short time.

Communication Skills are very important in our hectic and highly coimmunicative society.

But most people think that communication is talking, telling others about everthing and anything one thinks is important.

But communication is not a one way street! Communicare - the word that is the origin for comunication - means interaction between two or more people. So it's not about monologues, but dialogues.

For a dialogue to be a meaningful exchange of ideas and opinions, both or all parties involved in this dialogue need to be ready to also listen to what the others have to say.

This is why listening skills, especially reflective listening skills are so important!