Listening And Hearing

Some people confuse hearing with listening. But listening is something more than hearing....

Hearing is simply physiological in which the frequency of sound waves produced to make our eardrums vibrate. These vibrations, then, are carried to the inner ear (cochlea), where these vibrations are translated into electrochemical impulses and further they are carried to the central auditory system of the brain. The brain then recognizes these impulses and identifies them as sounds. This process is very fast and automatic requires hardly any effort. In fact, we are not able to stop it useless we use earplugs of some kind to block the aural passage.

Listening, on the other hand, first involves paying close attention to the sounds that come in combinations and contrasts and thereby from the speech, and then its nature and intent are interpreted and inferred internally by the brain with a decoding system as it is tuned. Technically, it would be correct to say that once the process of interpretation and interference begins, listening occurs. The process, in short, involves analyzing speech sounds, organizing them into recognizable patterns, interpreting the patterns, and then understands the message by inferring the meaning.

Listening and Thinking 

We can think much faster than we can talk. Our brain works with hundreds of words in addition to those we hear. It means that our brain will continue to think at high-speed while the spoken words arrive at low speed. That is, we can listen and still have some spare time for our own thinking. How this spare time is used holds the key to how well a person can listen to the spoken word. 

Types of listening 

• Attentive listening: It involves paying attention to the words that are being spoken rather than understanding the head and heart of the person speaking. Attentive listening is said to be effective listening.
• Pretending Listening: It means pretending through facial expressions that communicated message is listening. Here, nothing like listening takes place, just hearing is there.
• Selective Listening: It means not taking the message as it is, but adding or deducting according to one's own whims and wishes i.e., selecting the' desired' part and ignoring the 'undesired' part of the message. This type of listening leads to strengthening one's own beliefs and restrains further learning. It usually happens in selective listening that the listener tries to identify himself with the situation either partially or totally and attempts to find his autobiography in the lives of others.
• Empathic Listening: It involves listening not only through ears but also through eyes and heart. It is listening intently and intensively to understand the person fully, deeply both emotionally as well as intellectually. Some people feel that empathic listening is risky as it means becoming open and vulnerable to other person's influence, while others feel that empathy for the speaker is an essential requirement of effective listening.
• Listening for Mutual Creativity: It is a higher form of listening. Listening to inspiring mutual creativity is responsible for many breakthroughs in the world. Listening for mutual creativity is rooted in two questions. What do you most want? and How can I help you get what you most want? To listen in total support of other people, To be for their goals and aspirations in your own body, mind, and spirit - may well be the greatest gift you can give your fellow human beings.   

This listening is synergistic in nature. The team's synergy' means that whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Listening for creativity not only smoothes but accelerates the understanding process through a communion of hearts and minds. This listening relieves the person from stress and strain, soothes their hearts, and helps them to bring the idea lying in the crust of their subconscious minds to the conscious surface. Thus it leads to mutual creativity.

• Intuitive Listening: Intuitive listening, like listening for mutual creativity, is a higher form of listening. It means listening through the intuitive mind by silencing the other internal dialogues going simultaneously.