The Lost Art of Listening Summary

ABOUT THE BOOK:
Blog Title: The Lost Art of Listening Summary
Name: The Lost Art of Listening, Second Edition: How Learning to Listen Can Improve Relationships (Guilford Family Therapy)
Author: Michael P. Nichols
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Book size: 314 pages

About Author:

Before talking about the book “The Lost Art of Listening Summary”, let’s first discuss the book’s author Michael P. Nichols. He is a Ph.D. Professor of psychology at the College of William and Mary. He is the author of Stop Arguing with your kids, among numerous other books. He is a well- known therapist and a popular speaker.

Overview:

The Lost Art of Listening Summary tells us the importance of talking and listening. The author says listening, or rather, not listening to each other separates us from our family, friends, and co-workers. Author says that today we have lost the art of listening, we are not learning to listen to someone with true empathy, we listen to someone not to understand them or their views but we listen to someone so that we can raise our opinion our views and can respond, we don’t listen to understand but we listen to reply.

Author says that we should talk to others in order to clarify our own thoughts feelings and we should listen to someone with true empathy in order to understand them, in order to give them proper and right advise, author says that today almost everyone is busy in their own lives, everyone is busy with their work and struggles, no one has time for others, no one is ready to listen to others talk, almost everyone listen with a thought that we are expected to respond, sometimes people just need a listener they don’t want any reply or response they just want to share their thoughts, but this busy world don’t have those empathetic listeners. This busy world is making us selfish, because we only care about our lives and this selfish behavior is not making us understand the importance of listening, author says listening is an art, it takes time and efforts, it requires patience and understanding, author says that in this busy world we are losing the art of listening, to make us understand the importance of listening and to save the art of listening author has written this book.

Let’s begin with The Lost Art of Listening Summary:

Part 1: The Yearning to be understood

Chapter 1: Did you hear what I said

In this chapter, author ask a question that “WHY LISTENING IS SO IMPORTANT?”

The author says that when we attempt to listen we impart to the speaker our unawareness of not hearing them, we shift our eyes, we look around, we interrupt them to speak to someone else, all these signals leave the speaker knowing that they have not been heard.

When we feel that we are not being heard that feeling trigger a sense of rejection kind of feeling in us, we start feeling sad and rejected, we start feeling as if our words and we don’t matter to the listener, this thing makes us weak emotionally.

Author says the biggest problem is we feel that; we are listening, but actually most of us just listen but don’t understand, most of us don’t have that patience to listen to others, we interrupt the other person in between and start responding in middle of their conversation, this behavior can really disturb the speaker, in order to understand the feeling of speaker you must imagine how you will feel if you want to share something with someone but you don’t have anyone to listen to you, you don’t have your closest people around you when you need them the most, how you will feel when you want someone special to be with you and want to share everything with them but they are busy in their lives or when you are sharing your joy with your loved ones and you find them distracted not listening to you or instead of listening to you they start interrupting you in between with their talks, how you will feel that time, for sure this kind of behavior will make you feel bad, sad, you will for sure get upset with your loved ones because you had an expectation that they will listen and understand. Always listen to others with empathy, speaker share to you because they trust you and they are comfortable with you; hence never break someone’s heart and trust.

The author says that there are two important aspects of listening, first to obtain knowledge and to be available to someone who is speaking, never switch the conversation to yourself, being listened to sincerely motivates us and we also know that we are appreciated hence be a good empathetic listener.

Chapter 2: Thanks for listening

Here author talks about How listening shapes us and connect us to each other.

Author says that definition of ourselves develop in our verbal interactions with others,  author says that we get into relationship with others through our verbal communication and listening, author says that listening is a major key to the development of healthy relationship with others and with ourselves, author says that our inner experience is built and shaped by what we are approved for saying and doing, and by that which we are disapproved by saying and doing, since childhood our parents plays a very important role in shaping child’s inner perception by caring and listening to their inner self-esteem and supporting them for their choices and decisions, Parents can either make a child confident or insecure, if parents listen to their child perception and views and support them for their choices this thing will make their child confident but if parents avoid their children inner self-perception views and opinions and say bad or inappropriate statement  then this thing can make child insecure and build their weak character, hence grow your child by listening to their inner perception, advise them, support them and give them a right direction don’t avoid them.

There are many more chapters under part one in order to understand and read each chapter in detail do buy this book from the given links.

Download Free The Lost Art of Listening Audiobook on Audible
Buy The Lost Art of Listening on Amazon
Buy The Lost Art of Listening on Flipkart

Part 2: The  real reasons people don’t listen

Chapter 1: When it is my turn

In this chapter, author talks about THE HEART OF LISTENING: The struggle to suspend our own needs

Author says in order to take real interest in the speaker first we need to leave our own agendas or interest, author says that good listening requires us to be patient, we should withhold our input until the speaker has had her say, author says Active listening requires great self-control, author says that listening requires efforts, we shouldn’t say anything in between, when speaker is speaking we must listen to the speaker with true empathy and shouldn’t say anything in between, we should wait for our turn, if we interrupt in between or switch the conversation then this thing will make speaker uncomfortable and can also upset them, hence always listen with empathy and with pure heart. The author says we must listen carefully and should respond as per speakers feelings, we shouldn’t listen to search for facts about speakers behavior or accomplishment, always listen with pure genuine heart, and understand the true genuine feelings.

This is the end of The Lost Art of Listening Summary. There are many more parts and chapters in this book. If you want me to make another part of “The Lost Art of Listening Summary” then do comment in the comment section.

Download Free The Lost Art of Listening Audiobook on Audible
Buy The Lost Art of Listening on Amazon
Buy The Lost Art of Listening on Flipkart

Thank you.