Listening To Understand, Not To Respond

Picture this scene: your spouse is telling you how frustrated they feel about something you did in front of the kids, and you are looking into their eyes, nodding your head. But in reality, your mind is working at a mile a minute, preparing your legal argument. You aren't listening to their pain; you are reloading your weapon for a counterattack.

We call this phenomenon 'background processing'. Physically we are in the living room, but mentally we are in a courtroom building our defense. Stephen Covey summed it up brilliantly and painfully: most of us do not listen with the intent to understand; we listen with the intent to reply.

Paul David Tripp helps us see that behind this bad habit hides our pride. When we interrupt or stop listening halfway through the other's sentence, we are communicating without words: 'I already know what you are going to say, I assume your intentions, and quite frankly, my perspective is much more valuable and urgent than yours.'