Love IDEAS-Exploring the Heart of RelationshipsSample

Day 2 - Listen and Validate 

ASK: Ask God to join you for this time, specifically for understanding how to be a better listener and how to validate the ones you love. 

READ: James 1:19, Mark 4:24

DEVOTIONAL:  Learning to be a good listener can build trust in relationships. Trust is the foundation for deep and meaningful relationships. In my beginning days of working as the Chief Community Relations Officer for a large school district, one of my main goals was to get to know all of the people that worked in our department. I scheduled personal meetings with each of them. One conversation still stands out for me. I was meeting with the head of one of the groups that interacted with parents quite frequently. I asked questions and the woman gave me answers. I tried to allow her to share what was on her heart about her work and position. I asked about what was good, what she thought was not working. I asked how I could help. She stopped the meeting, looking confused, and said, “We’ve been talking for about 45 minutes and not once have you looked elsewhere or at your phone. Do you even have a phone with you?” I asked her why she noticed this. “Well, your predecessor was always texting and checking her phone and never even looked at me in any meetings we had. And she would stop meetings to take calls, interrupting our conversations constantly every few minutes.” WOW! And ugh! I assured this person that I would never do that. I wanted to hear from her and for her to know how much I valued her thoughts and opinions of the way we should be doing things. Immediately, just by being attentive and in the moment, I gained her trust and respect for working together. This experience can happen to you by listening to someone you care about such as your spouse, partner, family member or good friend.

In Stephen Covey’s best selling book, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Habit 5 is  “Seek first to understand, then to be understood.”  Growing up, much of our socialization and education informs us in how to be good communicators by teaching us reading and writing, but forgets to instruct us on how to listen and empathize with people. 

Here are a few good tips for being a good listener: 

· Get rid of all distractions (like mobile phones)

· Face the person you are listening to

· Make eye contact

· Keep an open mind

· Don’t interrupt

· Give body language clues and brief responses that show your understanding of their situation. 

· After listening, summarize what you heard, and instead of diving in with suggestions on how to “fix” the problems, ask how you can help. 

Validate the person so they understand that you have compassion for them in what they are going through. Validation identifies how a person is feeling and allows them to trust you more. 

WRITE: Take notes on some of your thoughts about how well you listen to others. Write down specific interactions that you remember from recent situations or conversations and how they went. Could you have been a better listener? How would you like to change those interactions to be a better listener and be supportive? Write down a few bullet points that you would like to try so you can become a better listener with the ones you love.  

MEDITATE: Pray about the answers to the questions you wrote down above. Ask God to give you insight into situations you may have handled poorly and how you can correct them in the future. You may want to consider going to those people and apologizing. Ask God to make you aware of situations as you are in them, to remind you to be a better listener for those around you. Be prepared to be “prompted” by the Holy Spirit as you seek to listen.