TOPIC 5: MINDFUL LISTENING

 MINDFUL LISTENING


Based on my understanding about mindful listening is mindfulness encourages you to be present in the moment and let go of distractions as well as your physical and emotional reactions to what others say to you. When you are not mindful, you may become distracted by your own thoughts and worries, failing to see and hear what others are doing and saying. For this I would like to sharing my experience and thought about mindful listening that I have been practicing in my daily life. 

The very first step in listening is the decision to be mindful. Mindfulness is being present, fully at the moment. I knew I was in for a beating as soon as I started to read this subject on mindfulness. It is definitively an area where I can use some improvement. I really need to improve my communication skills because being mindful, means, that we do not let our thoughts drift to what we did the other day or plan to do later on. It means we tune in fully to another person and try to understand what is being communicated, without imposing our own ideas, judgments, or feelings. In my opinion, mindfulness starts with the decision to attend fully to another. Listening is an essential skill to ensure the person's views and opinions are understood correctly to prevent a misunderstanding. Often it may be necessary to respond either verbally or non-verbally to show the person they are being understood.

From this topic, I could improve the way that I communicate and in turn enhance interpersonal relationships. While preparing a presentation, I make sure that I give myself some time to focus on the project because I know that with all the distractions around, I can easily miss something on a PowerPoint or meeting notes. I have learned that rushing or not giving my full attention usually ends up with mistakes that I later regret.  Almost all corrective actions and performance improvement plans that are put in place are due to mindlessness or multitasking. A partner, while on a personal call, misses a step in the process and ends up having to start the whole process over again. Another partner wasn’t paying attention during a meeting and subsequently filled out paperwork incorrectly. Both instances could have been avoided if the partners had been mindful during work and meetings.

Throughout my life I often caught myself thinking, “I wish someone would listen!” “Do they even know what listening is?” More so, “do they know what it takes to be an active listener?” Before entering Counseling Theory and Process, I was exceedingly confident in my ability to be an active listener, hence my interest in becoming a counselor, little did I know, there was an abundant amount of information to be learned. Furthermore, there was so much more knowledge to consume about other people, the counseling process, and the development of my own professional identity in general. Active listening is a powerful technique that I believe is highly underestimated.As an trainee counsellor I have been practice active listening, I usually listening to my client taking and sharing their problem or issues. I been practicing variety of technique such as paraphrasing to show understanding,building trust and establishing rapport with my clients. Other than that, I practice brief verbal affirmations such as  “I know,” “Sure,” “Thank you,” or “I understand” in when communicate. To be concern, sometimes I do self-disclosure to my client so that they does not feel they are alone. For example, disclosing similar experiences to show understanding.

These practice helps me as a trainee counsellor physically and emotionally. It's help me to sense and understand our own state of being at the present so I can accurately adjust my own emotions and behaviors accordingly. For example, when given the opportunities to focus on sensing their bodies reaction to the environment, if they sense that shoulders rise, and their faces get hot, they know that they are angry. It is important for me being aware of my angry emotion or inpatient, I will be more likely to behave in a more rational way. Also, being able to connect with myself current emotions without judgment help them to better adjust themselves. It is also a way of increasing sense of control over the situation.  

In addition, another reason why  me as trainee counsellor practice mindfulness is because I can be more open to clients from different cultures, ethnicities, and backgrounds, and so be better able to help a diverse clientele base. For counselor trainees, being mindful of their own culture, which means understanding their own experiences, thoughts, and feelings may help them to strive to do the same with their clients’ experiences, thoughts and feelings. In counseling, I always remind myself to be crucial to be open toward other cultures, and create a judgement-free zone for clients of all backgrounds. It is possible that a cultural difference might create strong emotion and damage the therapeutic relationship, especially for those who are inexperienced in the field. So developing cultural tolerance through mindfulness is necessary. 

Last but not least, mindful listening is an important component of effective communication because it involves both part which is receiving and giving feedback. Mindful listening makes all the difference in three elemen which is stop, notice and suspend. We should stop thinking what are we going to say and just listen while notice is notice our thoughts and feeling ,not just content or words. Last, suspend is we suspend our judgement briefly and listen carefully first before we judge. 

Beatrice Racheal (69211)



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