Play: a complex art
Carlos Alemany
" We have been given two ears but only one mouth, so we can hear more and speak less ." Zeno of Elea
Carlos Alemany
" We have been given two ears but only one mouth, so we can hear more and speak less ." Zeno of Elea
Zeno of Elea was a good observer of what occurring in everyday life: that people then talked a lot and heard / listened to very little. Today, twenty-five centuries later, his dictum is still relevant today. There is as a warning, not only for sailors, but almost, almost, to Shipwrecked ... Why so little practice something that psychologically we need both? Indeed, the winds are accentuated haste, activism, compulsive relief, etc, in addition to the technological advances of the "society of the click." The telephone, for example, a good tool to communicate, it becomes more common invasive element in our lives. Now I do not even need to rise to address: the wireless lunch breaks, after dinner ... It is increasingly common to see how it is used on the street or while driving the car ... It is also the "partline" (the totum revolutum, all talking at once), etc, etc.
Another example: the youth is now fully inserted into the era of the 'Walkman' means 'helmet' always put in a subway, bus, cycling, or leaving class ... Always looking for the hyper ..! Can there be in such a society, with an experience as accelerated time, space and serenity level sufficient to produce this quiet listening, interpersonal connection that produced by known heard by the other? We do, indeed, quite difficult. So listening is, paradoxically, a value as necessary as countercultural. Perhaps when the glut is made and unbearable, try to flee the city to the countryside. However, we may take with us, also the field-internal and external noises that prevent us from opening ourselves to a host, the desire to have us communicate with our women, our children, our friends or neighbors ... And yet, there is always latent, and biding his time, the ability to enjoy nature, listen to the wind combing the mountains, hear the birds competing in colorful concert with the "Silent music." Tony de Mello
aptly formulated this quest for lucid consciousness, that which is present and connected to what is contemplated, see or hear. In one of their stories raises a disciple who constantly complained that his teacher hid him the ultimate secret of Zen
"One day the teacher took him to walk with him through the woods. As they walked, they heard a bird sing.
- Did you hear that bird singing? Asked the Master.
"Yes," replied the disciple.
"Well, now you know that I have not been hiding anything.
"Yes," the disciple "."
Hear, hear, see. .. require an environment and an attitude quite different from those usually surround us: Noise, noise, noise ... or words. "Words to sing, words to pray, to mourn words, words, words, words correctly recited ...», José Antonio Labordeta back in the seventies. Two
false beliefs, or myths, about listening
A) Is it the same "listening" to "hear"?
is undeniable that we often use interchangeably both verbs in our ordinary language. "Did not you hear me?" The wife asks her husband. "Yes, yes ... I was listening ...», answer this, but could hardly repeat the last words recorded the microcomputer of the brain. When we speak of "hearing" we are referring to the physiological process that occurs when the reception wave stimuli, produces a series of vibrations to the brain. There is a threshold of hearing that occurs when there are waves with a frequency of between 125 and 8,000 c / sec. Below this threshold, very little ... or anything we hear:
- The silence and the desert are between 0 and 10 decibels.
- The atmosphere of a library or a whisper, between 30 and 40 decibels.
- A moderate tone normal conversation can be between 50 and 60 decibels.
But since there are "triggers" stimulation, and the noise is loud, intolerable and even painful.
The truck unloading trash, the braking of a car or a heated discussion of the neighbors will go up to 80-90 decibels, "a motorcycle accelerating urbanization butt, or club 'normal', placed the tension between 110-120 decibels, on the other hand, the physical fact hearing can not be stopped, since the vibrations are transmitted to our brain inevitably, like it or not.
Play something else. Listening is a psychological process, starting from the hearing, involving other subject variables: attention, interest, motivation, etc. It is a much more complex than simple passivity that associate to "stop talking." Relevant
psychologists of our time have highlighted the importance of this dynamic listening, qualifying it with eloquent epithets. C. Rogers will speak of "empathic listening"; R. Carkhuff, of 'active listening', as opposed to passive; J. Rowan, the 'holistic listening' (sounds like the whole process), and E. Gendlin, the "listening absolute" or "therapeutic listening", emphasizing, in this case the listener is not merely a simple arrangement or step in a process of change, but can itself be a sounding process, by capacity is key to facilitating the understanding of the meanings (2).
M. Marroquin has insisted on the same line, framing active listening as a skill essential in any helping relationship (3). It has also been listening properly categorized as a process of internal psychological care. Listen from our inside, clean sound, and relaxed attention and convergent. Hope Borus (4) develops beautifully the relationship between attention-relaxation, which makes possible the framework of effective listening, beyond the mere hearing repeatedly, trying to create a whole different lifestyle.
B) natural ability or skill learned?
The second false belief or myth has to do with the assumption that listening is a natural process that, unless we have organ damage, listening is something that is given by evolution from our birth. We are born with eyes and ears closed, and almost without knowing breathing, but then the survival instinct and our own evolution teach us to breathe, see, hear, cry, talk and walk. No doubt there are people with more ability than others to manage these natural processes, just as there are people most able to talk, to listen or to swim. But, interestingly, from the seventies all the experts or "gurus" were commissioned to warn is "not breathing knew" that "do not know"-just look-we knew who "knew not relax," which " did not know pat "who" knew not to listen "...
And, on a natural base, listening is a skill that must be learned and taught, repeated and evaluated. Only then, what appeared as a machine learning becomes something already integrated into our own personal mood. Of course, once detected our deficits and improved our achievements. Say a word about it right away.
In short, nobody has to teach us to hear, taste or touch, but everything is very different when someone makes us proficient and experts in deep listening, to savor the different tastes or the use of touch as warm communication: only then understand the difference is between natural processes and those acquired with training programs to operationalize and maximize our own personal resources. Not realize all this means getting locked-engrossed-in our own sounds, or trapped in the screens themselves mentally, and quite rightly suggests Krishnamurti: "Most of us heard through a display of resistance. In a real listening between us our prejudices, whether religious or spiritual, psychological or scientific divide us our daily concerns, our desires or expectations, our fears, etc. And with that as a screen ... Hear! Therefore, what we hear it is ... our noise, our sound, not what is really being said ... "(5).
hear and be heard: an experiential art
Thus, the dynamics of listening involves an attitude, a skill that can be improved, a process that can develop in ourselves one of the values most valuable personal and even provide some of our best life experiences. Carkhuff talks about how much that helps upgrade the grounds just in time before listening to someone. Here and now, why is it important for him or her, for me, for the interaction between both, which I hear right? However, in the long run, the real motivational process is that we receive from our own experiences: those that speak of the benefit and enjoyment that come to us through the act of listening, and relief and a deep sense of belonging that occurs having been heard by others. When at the end of his life, tried to compile their best practices in communication, Carl Rogers expressed this very well so suggestive:
"The first feeling just want to share with you is what I enjoy when I can actually hear someone . Listening to someone contacts me he enriches my life. Through listening I have learned all I know about individuals, personality and interpersonal relationships ...
That experience I remember from my early years in high school. A student asked a question, and the teacher gave a magnificent response to another question entirely. I am always overcome by a feeling of pain and anguish: 'You have not heard them' was the reaction that I produced. I felt a kind of despair at the lack of child communication, which was-and remains-so common.
The second thing I learned, and I'd like to share with you is that I like to be heard. Countless times in my life I found myself turning to the same thing or invaded by feelings of worthlessness or contempt. I think I was more fortunate than many, at that time to find individuals who have been able to listen more deeply my feelings as I have known I listen without judging or evaluating ... "(6).
No further comment is needed because the text speaks for itself. Only thank representing self-disclosure: also those who believe we invaded by feelings of worthlessness and we were relieved when another human being, through listening, it returns the connection to our innermost being.
Locks Psychological difficulty listening areas
If listening is a skill that must be learned and that must be trained to improve their acquisition and mastery, we must be aware of two aspects:
- What kind of difficulties usually have that prevent us from listening effectively.
- What alternatives or what we can offer clues to improve the quantity and quality of our personal listening.
-functionally classify hurdles "in three areas: physical or physiological, emotional and cognitive.
A) physical area
body fatigue. When the body is physically tired, drowsy (due to lack of sleep, heavy digestion, etc.), Hungry, thirsty ... we have more difficulty obtaining the energy level necessary for good quality listening. A basic bodily needs uninsured difficult psychological gratification. Everyone knows their own bio-rhythms body, alternation fatigue-rest and its incidence in facilitating or hindering the necessary body care. Climate, environment and ecology of communication . The environmental context of listening can help Help or hindrance. Spending excessive heat or cold have disturbed our psychological, because the body finds its homeostatic balance. The atmosphere will make us realize things as concrete as odors, poor ventilation, fumes ... Ecology is concerned with natural forms of sitting or standing and looking for places quiet or, conversely, hiperestimulantes and do not provide the necessary serenity to listen.
physical distractions. We here allude to the outside distractions, which manage to divert our attention from the process of listening. Take some examples: tables, scrambled and in sites disorder, constant interruptions from people, phones, ringtones, sounds ... When this happens, the verbal discourse, fluid and emotional care required by the listener does not find the minimum necessary to provide the other self-exploration process. On the contrary, through such nonverbal information we convey our inattention or incompetence or our difficulty in hearing.
B) Area
emotional
improve the quality of listening is the ability to be aware that emotional problems can also act as interference. Listen to the other / a with what we are and what we feel. On the other hand, the interaction surface in us new emotions or feelings about that person or the contents that we are transmitting. So it will be good for us to do this simple question: What emotion or feeling invades me here and now? My emotional self-awareness tell me if I'm tired, anxious, aggressive, restless, hurt by something, afraid, and so on. Surely, all that is happening regardless of my interaction with that person, but be aware of this, acknowledge and "give me permission" to be so, help me to listen to release energy.
During this process of interaction, which can last from a few minutes and a few hours, I will help wondering: what is causing me feelings this person?, what feeling I am experiencing with regard to what I understand?, "is taking some kind of emotional contagion? Again, awareness of feelings and emotions is a way to establish a certain distance, to create an affective space enough to allow the person to be themselves, with their emotions and their stories, and feel simultaneously that I can take them as they are expressed.
It is often the case that a communication from another, or by the contents of either the favorable or unfavorable emotions triggered in us, affect significantly and prevent us, in fact, maintaining a sympathetic distance facilitator. Maybe your fear touches my fear in disguise. Maybe he or she not quite sure why, managed to shoot my aggressiveness or my vulnerability. Provide a space for awareness of this possible emotional contagion is a sine qua non for outside yourself and listen and accept each other's feelings.
should be referring too, if only in passing, other polarities such as "boring-interesting," "serene-threatening ',' attractive-repulsive ', which can make us realize that our reactions-end being resistance-both compared to verbal content as compared to the emotional tone that conveys our interlocutor. Will be a nice challenge to our emotional withdrawal.
C) cognitive or mental Area
is one of the most hinder or block the process of active listening and functional. Here come all that rages in our minds, thoughts, irrational beliefs, prejudices common unconscious' mental rolls "and, in general, all messages that are created while connected or disconnected with the other. Some of these messages are as clear as usual:
Prejudice , whether political, moral, cultural, first impressions, etc. All we have and it works. But, although it is not possible to avoid, we can, however, reduce its effect to interfere with the least possible noise in the communication. Occupations
mind. The current ballistic wisdom advises: "Put your mind where your body is." However, we know how difficult it is we usually do, hence the dissociation constant state of mind / body in which we live. One thing: there is evidence that a person is able to understand verbal messages other to an average of 600 words per minute. However, the mean of a normal conversation is 100 to 140 words per minute. The conclusion is obvious: while the other "speech", whether in a private conversation at a conference or teaching a class, we have enough "mental free time." What we tend to take this "free time"? Going back and forth to other thoughts, make plans, remember to pending cases, etc. And even when we are listening with interest, motivation, etc., Very easily use this time to think about the answer that we will give in the question you have to do or experiential associations that we will communicate as soon as we possible to get a word ...
In any case, we are not with a clear mind and open to receive all the other information being transmitted to us, nor to capture the emotional tone that accompanies it. Our mental impatience will do a disservice to the other, who will not feel not heard or understood, but only responded to one of the stimuli that has been sent. Learn to invest that "mental free time" to emphasize internal circular points of information, to note the contradictions with body language, to connect data and verify what we do not understand, will greatly facilitate our listening.
would other psychological difficulties and bottlenecks that add to those already proposed. We believe however, these are the most common and which must be addressed with priority.
Some suggestions for improving the quality of listening
1. It seems important not only to be convinced that listening is a value that must be promoted, but also, by virtue of this, review the experiences that we usually hear. We may ask: in the past two months, how many people and how long I have awareness of hearing? What information I have provided these people that they have actually been, for me, for example, have improved their self-exploration? Would I have said it directly ("what a pleasure talking with you!": "Thanks for listening !»...)? And vice versa: for whom I felt really listened to / a in recent days? 2. This also enhances our learning discernment when we offer negative experiences: people, environments, groups, etc., Where you have stopped, you have not been addressed minimally, or have done simultaneously listening with three things at once ... The anger caused by this lack of attention can help us learn not to do the same with others.
3. Knowledge would also help detect each of the three areas-physical, emotional and cognitive deficits or two or three common problems, and propose for a time correction, thereby improving the skill of listening. For example: what to do to avoid physical distractions that disturb me most?, How I can update my motivation before and while listening to someone? Or perhaps the emotional terrain where you have to start working more specifically: I can get more emotional neutrality of the other posts?, "I can better manage my anxiety, my fear or my disinterest emotional?
4. However we will improve not only our attitude, but our skills, and succeed in being people able to listen actively and functionally to facilitate understanding of the other.
But if, in addition, we intend to grow in this way, if we want to hear from one of our goals in life, then we must take further steps and submit a new challenge or challenges. I just want to let them indicated:
- What other aspects help to improve the quality of my listening?
- What I can learn from the people for whom I feel really listened?, How I have provided (voice, sort of intervention, etc.).?
- How to be able to listen to people and content opposites and opposites my own ideas, values \u200b\u200bor feelings?
- I can specialize in "difficult listening"? For example, people listen to obsessive, repetitive, heavy, slow, boring, etc. (Which require a higher dose of patience), or those of others who usually avoids because of its peculiar character, his introversion poverty or human resources ... Growing
this line is to the dynamics of listening to a pivot to provide our own personal growth simultaneously with the others. It is they, ultimately, allow us, with the experiences that we provide without being fully aware, to expand substantially our own horizons.
In short, listening is an art that is learned exercising it, detecting the most common difficulties and inertia to act on them. But it is also an art that, although it may seem difficult, not so much when you become a living experience and pliable, when we specify achievable targets.
1 A. DE MELLO, Singing Bird , Sal Terrae, Santander 1989, pp. 28-29. Gendlin
2 was one of the first to create 'change groups', in which people trained in the skills of' listening and being heard. " Cf E. Gendlin, Focusing: focus technique process and body Mensajero, Bilbao 1991, pp. 143s. 3 M.
MARROQUIN 'active listening', in (VV.AA.) Confinement and social conflict, Aset, Madrid 1984, pp. 251-315. See also the same author, "Active listening as a therapeutic tool in the psychological help": Journal of Humanistic Psychology and Psychiatry 27-28 (1989) 74-82. 4 E.
Borus, relaxation and life , Rotorola, Pozuelo de Alarcón (Madrid) 1991.
5 K, The first and the last Freedom .
6 C. ROGERS, The way of being , Kairos, Barcelona 1987, pp. 17-19.
Source: http://www.mercaba.org/DOSSIERES/escuchar.htm
H 95 - March 22, 2002
television, video games, internet and all the paraphernalia of visual communications has produced a new model that seems to be no turning back, "look and not think." Critical reading, be it remembered, is high and museum piece.
Slaves
images
Marcelo Colussi
" not think watch the screen!" This phrase summarizes the trend of the participation of many citizens in the construction of cultural reality. According to several studies, 80% of what an adult "knows" comes, in general terms of the messages transmitted through television. Does that mean that a person knows what happens loyalty around him? This situation, more akin to those living in large urban areas, is expanding to all sorts of areas with the same result, since new technologies are the same messages to almost all parts of the world. Great masses of human beings thus become passive consumers of images, more subtle, more attractive ... ultimately more manipulated. While stocks are considered as passive agents in communication, have not historically had access to power, with contemporary technologies focused on the visual and manipulation that this makes possible, move away more and more decision-making.
television, video games, internet and all the paraphernalia of visual communications has produced a new model that seems to be no turning back, "look and not think." Critical reading, be it remembered, is high and museum piece.
Several open questions: who benefits from this situation? Is it "bad" this trend? "" Dangerous "perhaps? If so, why does it occur?
New technologies, more and more so, are not that necessary tool to help human development, as suggested by the recent report of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), but have become a bond that conditions negatively to the people.
The rise of image culture, which marked the second half of the twentieth century seems to have no end, has not largely determined how we think about our reality? Care more about presentation than content. It sells all kinds of (necessary or unnecessary products, political candidates or religions, etc..-The list is endless) more for its colors, cosmetics that is covered by the loud and hedonistic superficiality with which it is presented, which by their real qualities.
The prominence that has claimed the imagination is inseparable from an ideology centered on the gain in both economic development engine that appeals, therefore, the "sale" of images with frantic strength. But can not be separated today, the very form of development that has taken the technology, and not to be instrumental, but as an end in itself.
The image catches, has a value: love. Just as the insects fall in the light that subdues, humans succumb to screens dreams vending machines. This leads us to ask ourselves another question: Are we humans are condemned to live forever with a level of excitement? Why is it easier - fascinating - left invaded by a television news (or news show, more strictly intended) to develop an analytical reading? Why spend so much time like the "recreation" cheap screens offer us? There is no doubt that "sells" (hits) more attractive image than a sensible speech, the fascination is a very important part of the human. Perhaps that might become and will continue to widen, the visual culture of the rash. Although this is not the most worrying, it is scandalous manipulation purposes of social control that makes it.
response, civil society, sociological research groups, the professionals of the media, university professors ... should awaken from their slumber and make their voices heard with alternatives to this culture of "do not think." The debate is open. And not some proposals.
H 95 - March 22, 2002
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