How to Listen Better

2 exercises to help you become a better listener

Hey lovelies! 👋

Here’s your weekly dose of Pillow Talk - your 5 minute read on how to have a healthy, confident and pleasurable life.

This Week’s Skill - Active Listening

For the next few weeks, we’re working on communication (Pillar No. 1 in The Ferly Method). As a recap, central to communication is active listening - enter this week’s skill.

Growing up, active listening was a concept that would get throw around a lot. So much so, that if I’m being fully honest, I wrote it off as general jargon in the OG self-help and leadership movements. Here’s me fully recognizing I was wrong. 😬

So here’s the run down. Despite how much we’ve heard about active listening, not a lot of us actually do it in practice. Active listening involves being fully present and giving someone you’re undivided attention. This means not multi-tasking, not being distracted (✌️ out phones), and actively engaging with the person in front of us. Engagement looks like: not interrupting, making gentle eye contact, nodding, mirroring, repeating back what they say, etc.

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Active listening involves listening with the intent to understand, not the intent to reply.

Active listening is hella important in relationships. When you actively listen to your partner, you show them that you value their thoughts and feelings, and that you are willing to put in the effort to understand them. This helps foster more open and honest communication, build trust and intimacy, and deepens respect and connection. It’s also obvi a general be-better-at-life skill you can apply across all your relationships, romantic and otherwise.

1 Question to Ponder

As you move through the coming week, notice how you listen to others. Ask yourself:

  • “Am I listening to understand or am I listening for another reason?” (e.g. to reply, out of courtesy, I’m not really listening at all and I’m thinking about to-dos etc.).

2 Things to Try This Week

Solo Option: The Repeat Game

  • Choose a short audio clip, like a song or a podcast segment, and listen to it once. Then, try to repeat what was said verbatim without listening to it again. The purpose of this exercise is to improve your memory and concentration skills and active recall.

Partnered Option: The Are-You-Listening Game (note: your partner can be anyone)

  • Take turns telling a story but with intentional errors or inconsistencies. The other person must actively listen and identify the errors before the other continues the story. This is a great one for encouraging our ability to listen closely and pay attention to detail, which can help with more effective communication and problem-solving in your relationships.

3 Read/Watch/Listens

📊 How Good Are Your Listening Skills Quiz (dun dun dunnnn - the truth comes out)

That’s it for this week’s read - I’ll see y’all next week when we’ll cover ‘How to talk openly about sex and relationships with a partner’. As always, feel free to drop me a line if ya have any musings. I love getting to know the many wonderful people on the other end. 💌

Your gal,