Mirroring and the Art of Listening
With
Mirroring we learn how to listen There is something very special about authentic communication that separates it from what people normally do when they talk. In the strictest sense, what passes for communication between people, in everyday conversation, in reality, is not authentic communication at all because signals are not transmitted and received in ways that lead to the sharing of meaning or feeling. The distinctive and differentiating difference between authentic communication and typical talking is found first in the quality of listening, and most importantly, there is a communication needed between people when a signal (communication) is given, that the message has in fact been received correctly. This feedback signal is crucial and mission critical in the beginning of all real communication training. It is crucial until real trust is built. And even then, after we become totally skilled listeners and communicators, occasionally we still need to mirror certain communications to either let the speaker know they are being heard or to check out if we are really hearing correctly. The
technique of mirroring reveals almost immediately Communication Psychology sees authentic communication as being two way. True communication consists of a sender, a receiver, and a feedback signal to the sender that the transmission has in fact been received. In order for communication to take place there must be this elementary feedback signal which informs the source that the receiver has actually received something, otherwise communication is only one way. An exchange of meaning must somehow be confirmed. In face-to-face reality people talk but do not listen and thus much of communication between people is actually pretty much one way. People are usually so busy listening to their own minds when you speak to them that’s all they can hear, their own thoughts and reactions. And we can see this in their quick responses, which show off their lack of listening, or the intensity in which they listen only to themselves. Once we have learned how to really listen, which often takes much more time of practicing than we would suspect, the need to actually mirror is lessened because "we are listening" and the other knows and trusts that from their experience with us. With time and training the clues about non-listening states become much more obvious so we know when to ask a person to mirror our communications. A mirror basically is a reflection we give a person that starts with the words, "So what I think I am hearing you say is........" As we shall see later there are several levels to this the first being a mirror of a persons actual words but we can sum up in our own words quickly when we are more practiced and skilled in this. A mirror provides an instant acid test to the communication process. It helps both communicator and receiver. Our mirror is the feedback signal that lets the speaker know if we heard them correctly or if they have communicated their meaning with sufficient skill and clarity. People
get used to poor communication One of the most fundamental reasons why mirroring is often necessary is that when one person says something meaningful to another they have no idea whether the other person is really receiving or listening to what is being communicated. Most of us talk blindly into others faces without really knowing if they are really interested in what we are saying. We like to assume or pretend that they are for without this assumption we would really feel uncomfortable. We do not want to pay attention to the fact when we are talking the other is usually busy thinking, reacting, or preparing a response. When people fill themselves up with such mental activity they hear little of what we are trying to communicate. It is impossible for most people to listen to two things at the same time so when you are thinking while another is sharing we hear just a fraction of their total communication. Most conversations are closer to a game of mental ping-pong then to anything that even resembles the process of authentic communication. True
love is work because communications Mirroring is the closest a communication technique will ever come to not being a technique. There have been many attempts to "scientize" communication and now we even have people trying to "heartize" it. A friend of mine wrote me in response to my writings about listening, "I have had it with technique, absolutely HAD IT, done, finito, nada mas, terminado, fini, nix, no way, no, no, no, NO !!" Techniques can be powerful and even help us come into closer contact with our vulnerability or they can give us power to control communication dynamics in special circumstances; but the real benefit of totally open communication comes from truly listening to what is actually coming from a person, without expectation, or laying formats or theories or anything on them. Real authentic communication cannot be predicted, structured or orchestrated; it flows and is what it is. Predetermined paths in any communication can spell failure to the overall purpose of communication, which is the free sharing, and mixing of meaning and being, and I think this is what my friend was referring to. When we so predetermine what communication should look like or sound like we play a potentially dangerous game but mirroring is no game, and when done normally, does not qualify as some technique that potentially distorts our sharing. Listening Psychology goes as far as saying that if a person does not practice mirroring and has never training with others in a group for the purpose of learning to communicate and listen on deep levels, we can assume they are not skilled listeners. Normally only psychologists are trained in such things but even they are trained to listen with a bias. They filter many things through their psychological concepts and this is not pure listening. For true listening to occur the listener must concentrate totally on the other and this entails what some psychologists refer to as bracketing, which is the temporary giving up of, or setting aside of one's obsession with ones own inner world. Not only do we need to set aside one's own prejudices, frames of reference, desires, judgments, expectations etc., but also we have to actually bracket our very thoughts themselves. We need to put our inner mental river on hold and this few people know how to do. Listening is not easy and it is our own minds that make it difficult. It does become easier the more we open up the heart and feeling center for this only happens when we dare to slow the mind. Though meditation and deep relaxation training helps us gradually diminish the rapids of the mind and enter a still pool of consciousness beyond, mirroring takes us to task instantly. It confronts us straight away with what we are doing with our consciousness in the moment and adds great leverage and pressure to bracket ourselves now. Even advanced communicators, when asked to mirror, get caught in their non-listening, and that is what mirroring is for. The purpose is to expose our non-listening so we can apply our will and our consciousness again to get into the world of the speaker. The goal in real listening is to experience the speaker’s world from the inside, stepping into his or her shoes and walking a mile or so in them. This is experienced by both listener and speaker for this temporary setting aside of self is experienced as an expansion, sharing, and enlargement; a space which all people naturally appreciate because in essence it is love in action. So beautiful is the state of pure listening and communication that we have humility and compassion about the difficulties we have in touching upon this beauty. When we communicate something and a person cannot mirror, reflecting that they did not or could not hear; we do not pounce on them. We simply understand and communicate again. Often, especially if we are sharing something personal, we have to communicate again and again until the other gets it and we only know when they get it when the mirror comes back and feels right. Mirroring is `very´ difficult (impossible) for some people because it brings them into direct contact with the arrogance of their minds. Arrogant people usually have a high but false opinion of their communication and listening skills and the simple process of mirroring can throw them off their high horse. The process of mirroring demonstrates in a tangible sense, that we have in fact received a message; that we have in fact listened. People who believe that they are beyond this process, or that it is a waste of time, or too simple, or unnecessary are not trustworthy communicators. Arrogance is a deep and dangerous spiritual disease and mirroring is the process that catches the arrogant with their pants down. It is that strong and one of the reasons and kind of deep and meaningful communication is avoided, especially in the academic world. In the political world people are professionals and pretending to listen, pretending to be sensitive and open to the viewpoints of others. The
process of authentic communication and listening It is a sad fact that most couples never truly listen to each other and this is one of the principle reasons for high divorce rates. It is commonly known among therapists that couples resist setting aside dedicated times on their own to practice communication and listening skills. It seems contrived, rigid, unromantic and un-spontaneous to them yet the truth is that it is essential to create and set aside optimized environments that support the deepening of communication. We take communication so much for granted it is hard to imagine setting aside special time just for learning and practicing communication and listening skills. In the beginning listening well is an exercise that requires deep attention, concentration and practice. But because people are unconscious about the real demands of listening, and because they are really too lazy and arrogant to make the effort to learn and practice, we have a world situation that makes people poor listeners. The fact that the vast majority of people cannot listen and mirror properly without practice is proof enough that we "think" we understand and listen to others but in reality we do not. Some people might be dismayed to hear that though our capacities to truly listen may improve rapidly with practice it almost never gets to the point where it is a completely effortless process. Only when the heart opens completely and the mind surrenders totally to the intense fires of love does it become natural. When we fall in love naturally we have a great attention span with our beloved one but this diminishes as the "effortless" love of romance recedes. Real
listening requires that we get our own reactions Christopher Hills Mirroring can be very threatening to us because we become psychologically and spiritually naked. The invisible becomes visible exposing all the interfering mental activity that is going on in the background. Mirroring reveals the structure of our blocks to communication thus leading us quickly to deeper communication. As we learn `under fire´ how our egos are separating from others, we learn to unstop the blockages and move past the ego based mind that does not even want to communicate from and real depth of being. (See Blocks to Authentic Communication in HeartHealth: rationalizations, basic assumptions, judgments, projections, self-image, expectations, internalizations, stereotyping, compliance and negative identifications.) The
mirroring technique dissolves The best therapists know and are aware of their drifting from the pure light of listening. They know when they break from the pure dynamic of listening to their patients. It is almost impossible to listen for a full hour without some breaking of the bracketing necessary for total empathy. What makes a skilled therapist skilled is exactly the ability to know when they loose contact with the inner world of the patient. Here we help the communication flow with simple, honest and humble communications like "I am sorry but I did not hear the last thing you said, my mind drifted for a minute. Could you please repeat what you just said?” When we learn true listening we become more acutely aware of the gaps in our listening. We build a lot of trust when we help others get in touch with the feeling of being heard. Mirroring builds trust and with that trust comes the opportunity to communicate on much deeper levels of being. When we trust more we are more willing to risk sharing feelings, more willing to risk the types of communications that are essential for the preservation of our love. Mirroring is the quickest and most direct way to melt the separation that most people feel and experience with each other. Christopher Hills laid out three levels of listening. They are: 1) The word level - Often this is sufficient to make a communicator feel heard; other times it is a mere parroting of words by someone who has no intention of understanding a persons feelings at all. 2) The essence level - reflects some understanding of the essence of what the other person has said. Here we use our own words to sum up what we think we heard the other saying. Often another can use many words but we can mirror back with few words but still cover the points perfectly well. 3) The being level - tunes into the voice, the body language, and the general vibration of the person who is sharing. On this level we listen with our heart and open intuition. We become adept at listening to the space in-between the words to the being that is using them. This is the level of feeling and sensing the core of the others being as you listen. The
being level of listening opens up This is the level where love is found. All loving relationships are occurring on this level, the level of heart and being. Our lack of listening cuts into this world of experience and in general most people are more comfortable dealing on the superficial level of non-listening. Anything more seems like quite a risk but love is always a risk. Mirroring drops us into our beings by helping us get away from our defensive reactions that are more mental and reflexive. When we listen with our being we do not react defensively to what the other person is saying. Mirroring trains us to put our mind’s reactions aside long enough to hear the true message and communication of people. We
listen with patience and tune to our heart Mirroring trains us to put our full attention on what is being communicated. That means that we have learned to still our minds of most of its internal chattering so we can actually listen and hear what another human being is feeling. Mirroring trains the intuitive faculty of perception. In the section on Virtual Psychology in volume four we will see how even intense virtual communication can build up our intuitive powers. Mirroring certainly does that by making us more sensitive to our own internal states and the internal states of others. And anything that slows the river of thoughts in our minds helps open intuitive sensitivities. Listening to the being of another is the highest act of caring. To listen to the level of being or soul we must be "feeling" with the other person. We must be feeling “one” with their inner world. This is the essence of empathy. Empathy is the pure understanding of what others are experiencing and feeling. When we have shed our preconceived ideas and judgments about life and people we open up the heart that has this special capacity to empathize with another. Our
ability to listen, especially in sensitive situations, The most essential attitude necessary for real listening and communication between beings is humility. In humility we are not assuming communication and listening, we are alert and sensitive to the process. The majority of people are assuming that they are communicating and listening on deep levels when the fact is they are not. This assumption is really the greatest block to communication. Probing the roots of our gaps and obstacles to real communication is the springboard that opens us up to the full potentials that authentic and compassionate communication can bring. When
we fail to listen we separate Deep listening is healing. And its power to heal is spread evenly between the person being listened to and the listener. When we feel heard at a deep level of being we find some magical ability to re-perceive our world in a new way and go on. Carl Rogers said of this, "It is astonishing how elements which seem insoluble become soluble when someone listens. How confusions which seem irremediable turn into relatively clear flowing streams when one is heard." Deep listening brings all parties to the edge of their vulnerability, that place were we begin to tap into the deeper intelligence of the heart. The price of non-communication is conflict. Most of the suffering of the world, the conflicts within our inner worlds and the greater conflicts in the external world of societies and nations is a result of misunderstandings that arise from the poverty of communication. The path of risking communication on these deepest levels is a path that will draw a person closer to their own heart, closer to becoming a bigger person, a more selfless, loving and caring being. When
we mirror we are trying to reflect back |