48: Tired of Not Feeling Heard | 3 Important Tools for Listening

The Trina Glines Podcast - Love on Purpose: Your Part in a Happily Ever After

Trina Glines shares a hilarious and relatable story about dealing with a puppy mishap and how it taught her valuable lessons in marriage. She delves into the importance of listening, understanding, and validating your partner, offering practical tips to navigate everyday challenges. Tune in for a fun and insightful discussion on transforming communication in your relationship!

Here are six key points for using "Heard, Understood, and Validated" (HUV) as the way you listen:

1. Seek Full Attention: Before starting the conversation, ensure that the other person is fully available to listen. Politely ask if it’s a good time to talk and ensure they are not distracted.

2. Choosing to Listen, Understand, and Validate: Engage fully with the speaker by maintaining eye contact, nodding, and using verbal affirmations. Remember, this is not about fixing anything but being there for the person. Your role is to offer support and presence, not solutions.

3. Reflective Responses: Paraphrase or summarize what the speaker has said to ensure you have accurately heard their message. This shows that you are not only listening but also comprehending their words.

4. Empathy and Understanding: Express empathy by acknowledging the speaker’s feelings and experiences. Use phrases like “I understand how you feel” or “That sounds really challenging” to convey genuine understanding. It’s okay for a person to feel what they are feeling, and it’s the listener’s job to not fix or dismiss those feelings because they may be uncomfortable dealing with them.

5. Validation of Feelings: Validate the speaker’s emotions by affirming their right to feel the way they do. Clarify that validation does not mean agreement, but rather acknowledging their experience. Statements like “It’s okay to feel upset about this” or “Anyone would feel the same in your situation” can be very affirming without implying agreement.

6. Avoiding Judgment and Solutions: Focus on listening without immediately jumping to conclusions or offering solutions. Sometimes, simply being heard and validated is more important than finding a fix to the problem at hand.

These practices help create a supportive and trusting environment, fostering deeper connections and more meaningful communication.

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