Compassionate Listening.

Compassionate listening is a relationship superpower for ALL relationships, not just romantic relationships. This skill can be learned. I learned it myself; I certainly didn’t come by it naturally.

This skill works because when you do it right, it activates your social instincts of tenderness, compassion, and humility. When these emotional circuits are activated, they cancel out the automatic survival instincts of fight/flight/freeze. These survival instincts are the troublemakers in our relationships.

I like to teach this skill using David Burns tool, which he calls The 5 Secrets to Effective Communication. He had a great podcast episode recently with a mother and daughter who use this tool to have a healthy and close relationship as well as another podcast with Brian who was struggling with anger in his marriage. Other teachers of this skill include Marshall Rosenberg (his book is Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life) and Thich Nhat Hanh (you can watch this short interview with him for inspiration).

Podcasts on the 5 Secrets

If you want to learn compassionate listening, before you start trying it, you might want to first listen to most or all of these podcasts, and read through the worksheets and articles below. This will give you an overview and point out some of the “gotchas” before you start trying it yourself. When you do start trying it, I recommend doing it on paper first to help your brain get the feel for it.