By Dr. Margaret Paul
18146 Hit(s)
June 09, 2009
In 1974, Dr. Virginia Satir presented the concept of mirroring in her groundbreaking book, "Conjoint Family Therapy."
In 1975 Dr. Thomas Gordon wrote a best-selling book called "Parent Effectiveness Training." In the book he taught parents to "active listen," which means to reflect back to the speaker the feelings and information they are trying to convey.
Mirroring, or active listening, is a powerful tool, but whether or not it works depends upon your intent.
If you are active listening to another with an agenda to get them to see what they are doing wrong, or to get them to listen to you after you listen to them, then your intent in listening is to control. The person you are listening to can easily pick up the energy of control and will get angry or go into resistance. Listening with the intention to control backfires and creates confusion in communication.
However, active listening from a true desire to understand another's feelings and point of view can be magical. When you listen to learn and understand, rather than to control, you give the other person a great gift.
We all want to be heard and understood. While it is our responsibility to hear and understand ourselves - our own feelings and needs - and take loving action for ourselves, it also feels wonderful when someone we care about hears and understands us. This is the basis of emotional intimacy.
When I work with couples, I teach them that there are two healthy ways of dealing with conflict:
1. Open to learning
2. Speak your truth and lovingly disengage
Opening to learning
When you really desire to understand another, you move into an intent to learn - both about yourself and about them. Actively listening to the other is a major aspect of learning. When you really want to deeply know another, you listen carefully and mirror back to them what you hear them saying and feeling. It is not a matter of agreeing with them, but of understanding them. It is not about changing them or changing yourself, but about really hearing them and attempting to see the world through their eyes - understanding the good reasons they have for feeling and behaving as they do. If they are really upset and are available for a loving hug, this can be a big help in calming the energy, letting them know they are not alone.
Here is an example of active listening with an intent to learn:
Your partner: "I'm still angry at you for being late and not calling me when you know I worry about you."
You: "So when I don’t call when I'm going to be late, you feel I don't care about the fact that you worry."
Your partner: "Right. If you really cared about me, you wouldn't want me to worry."
You: "I understand. It hurts you when you know that I know you worry and I don't seem to care about that."
Partner: "Yes, that's exactly right. So if you understand this, are you going to start to call me when you are late?"
You: It sounds to like you believe that if I understand you, then I will change - that I have no good reasons for not calling, is that right?
If your partner is open, this dialogue can continue until it feels complete to both of you. Or, if your partner does not want to hear why you were late without calling, you need to let go of getting him or her to hear you and lovingly disengage. That's the hard part!
Speaking Your Truth and Lovingly Disengaging
There are times when, even if you are open to learning and really want to understand the other, he or she is just intent on trying to get you to change. When this is the case, you might want to speak your truth and lovingly disengage. This looks like saying something like: "I'd love to continue talking about this when you are open to listening to me and understanding why I was late without calling," and then walking away, keeping your heart open. This means that you are not withdrawing in anger or blame. You are staying in compassion for yourself and the other person, so that if he or she opens, you have no residue of hurt, anger or blame.
Resolution occurs when both people are open to learning and listening without a controlling agenda. True listening is an act of giving with no expectation of anything in return. It is a kind and loving way to interact with someone you care about. It is a great gift.
Heal your relationship with Dr. Margaret’s 30-Day online video relationship course: Wildly, Deeply, Joyously in Love.
Image by StockSnap from Pixabay
- Comments
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lindsayswisdom - 06/12/2009 08:07 AM
You are so right about how doing this is magical..to see the other person soften and then both of us becoming more open to learning with each other.
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Perplexed - Victoria - 06/12/2009 09:23 AM
Thanks for writing and sharing this article, Margaret. I find it helpful to have these simple principles of IB reiterated, reinforced, and elaborated. I particularly like the example dialogue that you give for moving into the intent to learn. I would really appreciate more such examples as I know that I get things a lot better when it is firmly attached to specific examples.
I must admit that I still have some issues with lovingly disengaging and here is why. If I understand correctly, loving disengagement is based on the fact that once a person has gone into their WS they are no longer open to learning and thus continuation of the conversation is pointless. Sometimes, it seems to me that this basis for relating does not take into account the needs of the person that we are listening to. Sometimes, that person may need to discharge there feelings in a loving and supportive environment in order to get over them, so to speak. After all, on the other side of those harsh thoughts and words that may well be filled with judgement, blame, and criticism, there inevitably reside deeply tender feelingss of pain, sadness,and not being seen. If we, the loving partner that we are trying to be to them, cannot offer them a place where they can safely discharge or vent those feelings, that individual may not find other means of doing this for themselves and thus remain stuck and end up holding on to resentment or depression for a very long time.
While saying this, I realize that it would take an EXTRAORDINARY level of openess, self-awareness, and focus to give this level of listening and presence but surely it could be done. Indeed, is this not reflected in the lessons and example of the great prophets and sages. Is this not the essence of being more Christlike as I was once advised to try to be by a therapist? This brings me to wondering whether the threshold of comfort and facility that a listener has in choosing either to (1) move into the intent to learn or (2) lovingly disengage is really quite pliable and flexible. It is a matter of personal boundaries which again, in my opinion, could conceivably be opened up significantly by cultivating one's ability to not take things personally. Thus, a person might well be able to cultivate a high threshold for where they feel that they need to cut off and disengage in order to remain free of their own tendency toward destructive reactivity.
All of this thinking and inclination to exploration and growth on my part is of course rooted in the fact that this act of loving disengagement, much as it allows me more peace and results in less active conflict in my life, is not leading to the healing and movement that I so want to achieve in my marital relationship. My wife is not finding another way to discharge her deep undercurrents of resentment toward me. It seems to me that if I don't pursue a different approach or alter the parameters of the existing one (the IB approach that you propound in this article) then nothing is going to change.
Does any of this make sense?
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Dr.Margaret - Berthoud - 06/12/2009 06:52 PM
It is very appropriate to provide the arena for a partner to discharge if, in your experience, that leads to openness and learning. However, too often, people discharge just to dump and blame, and this can lead to even more problems in a relationship. When you lovingly disengage, this means that you come back later - if you are both open - to learn and explore. However, if one or both of you are intent on changing the other rather than learning about yourselves and each other, then the distance will remain. Your wife's continued resentment toward you indicates that she is not taking responsibility for her own feelings and is blaming you for her feelings. If this is where she is, then all the discharging in the world is not going to lead to healing. Have you and your wife had any conjoint counseling? I think you need a third person to help the two of you through whatever the conflicts are.
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Perplexed - Victoria - 06/15/2009 08:05 AM
Thanks, Dr. Margaret. Your answer clarifies things for me. Your relationship wisdom is truly deep.
Yes, we have had counselling before, conjointly and otherwise. Last time I checked, my wife did not show any interest in trying it again. Personally, I would like to. I like getting help and trying new approaches to see what happens. Last time we did couple's counselling, we got to the point where a mutual commitment to a specific process was asked for (Imago Therapy). I was willing but she was not. I am not hung up on any particular approach. I just want to work on it (ideally cooperatively) to see what can be learned and what progress can be made. She reacts to what she calls clinical or formulaic approaches and she is also suspicious of spiritual approaches that she sees as "out there", "not main-stream", or mystical - i.e. not solidly based in reality. She would hate IB - calling it psychobabble and other uncomplemtary names.
I attribute at least some of this resistance to her professional education and training which is geared toward maintaining a sceptical and critical mind (she is a lawyer). Another deeply seated aspect of her personality is a fierce personal independence which does not like to have any one else's theories or practices imposed on her. She wants to discover her own path using her own intuitiion and feelings as her guide. This is one of the reasons she hates my self-help and other non-fiction genres of literature. In many ways, these are admirable characteristics but they also present a great challenge to me in trying to create the kind of relationship that I really want.
It is interesting that you say loving disengagement should ideally lead us back to the issue later when our intentions are clear. This sounds like an idyllic relationship to me. It is very far from our reality. There must be a way to cut through all the crap on the spot and get us to place where we can both be completely present to the situation and each other without conscious cooperation. That is to say, by me becoming impervious to negativity and completely present to "what is". After all, the great spiritual masters did not rely on beneficial intentions or conscious cooperation from others - right?
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Dr.Margaret - Berthoud - 06/15/2009 06:03 PM
You are exactly right - the great spiritual masters did not rely on others at all. So the message here is to let go of trying to get her to open and work together with you and focus on becoming kind and loving to yourself and with her. This is the only things you have control over - your own treatment of yourself and of her.
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Lightworker - Canton - 11/01/2012 04:43 AM
First I want to thank you Margaret for pointing me to this article from the advice section. I've been doing really good at listening to him when he needs to 'discharge' his feelings. It is most always in regards to all the stresses he experiences at his place of employment, what this person or that person did or did not do, etc, etc. When it comes to us though, he clams up like a well, like a clam and does this passive/aggressive stuff which used to drive me crazy! He can talk a mile a minute if it has to do with his job or sports or music but clams right up if it has anything to do with any feeling based issues between us. I used to get angry, defensive, I would cry or do whatever I could to contol the reality that he is just not open to learning with me. He will say nothing and I will say it all which I accept has been very controlling on my end.
I see how my form of control is of an aggressive type and his is very passive. I would love to hear his feelings about things but he is very withdrawn no matter how I approach him which tells me that it's not me personally, he has a very good reason for not being able to feel his own feelings and I used to take that personally. I fee thatl until he really wants to open begin learning about his own end of the system, I will do just as you suggested and keep working on my own growth and healing.
I grew up with him and know him on many different levels. His own mother is very domineering even to the point of cutting people off when they are speaking. Example, she is over for a family get-together like Easter dinner or such and there are lots of people around and she will ask someone, "So how are you?". Well before anyone can get a chance to say what's going on in their lives, she will cut you off and start talking about herself before you get three words out. I think she knows this annoys people so she will then kinda corner her son (my husband) and she has what she wants, a one way conversation about herself. Could this part of the reason my husband is so withdrawn about expressing his feeling thoughts rather than just superficial ones?
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Dr.Margaret - Berthoud - 11/01/2012 05:39 AM
I'm sure this has something to do with it. He likely doesn't feel safe expressing his feelings and feels that no one really cares about his feelngs anyway. It might help him if you learn to active listen to his feelings about work to let him know that his feelings matter to you. Saying something like, 'It sounds like you had a stressful day," or "It sounds like work was hard for you today," might help him feel heard, cared for and safe.
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Lightworker - Canton - 11/02/2012 04:51 AM
Thank you Margaret. I usually do this, however I can now see I would sometimes do it with a bit of annoyance because in the past, once I would open to hearing about his day, he could go on for over an hour! He knows now that I will listen for maybe ten minutes. If he goes past that I will say something like, "Well, you are home now in your castle and I don't want to see the rest of your day ruined because of it, how about a great dinner? and change the subject. Just listening to him and saying things such as "It sounds like you had a lot of stress today" makes him feel better.
Actually, things seem to be going a lot better with me in regards to not taking his stuff personally which has helped greatly! I think because of the fact that I DO know him very well and since childhood has been helpful in understanding what he went through as a kid and I can have compassion for his WS because I have direct knowledge of what he went through. This goes both ways actually. He knows a lot about my own family's dysfuctions years ago and when I look beyond our WS's, truly feel him to be my best friend. Again, many thanks.
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Dr.Margaret - Berthoud - 11/02/2012 05:19 AM
I'm so glad to hear this. I hear much more caring and positive energy in this post. Loving is often being able to understand and look beyond the WS and cherish the essence. It sounds like you are doing this right now.
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suziqzee - Charlotte - 02/21/2021 10:30 AM
Dr. M, like all your articles, this was so great! It just so happens I saw a humorous video today (very short) on "listening" that I thought to share, as we can all always use a good laugh:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yWcEhtg7W3s
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Dr.Margaret - Berthoud - 02/22/2021 04:48 AM
LOL! That's so funny! Thanks!
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