🎙️ Episode 18 - The Psychology of Listening: How to Make Someone Feel Truly Heard
Most of us think we're pretty good listeners.
But while someone else is talking, how often are we actually preparing our response, deciding whether they're right, thinking of advice, defending ourselves internally or simply waiting for our turn to speak?
In this episode, Adele and Dr Lindsay Aikman explore the psychology of really listening and why making another person feel heard requires far more than staying quiet while they talk.
Together, they unpack:
👂 Why hearing isn't the same as listening - and the difference between receiving someone's words and genuinely understanding their experience
🧠 Why listening becomes so difficult when we're triggered - especially when we feel criticised, blamed, misunderstood or desperate to defend our position
⏸️ The importance of postponing your agenda - temporarily putting aside your need to explain, persuade, fix or be right so you can enter somebody else's world
❤️ Why validation doesn't mean agreement - and how two people can have completely different experiences of the same event without either experience having to be erased
❓ How to ask better questions - replacing assumptions, interrogation and mind-reading with genuine curiosity
🪞 The power of reflection - listening for the feelings, needs and meaning underneath someone's words and checking that you've actually understood them
🛠️ Why advice can sometimes be a form of not listening - and the simple question to ask before jumping in to solve somebody else's problem
🔥 What happens when we're emotionally flooded - why regulation sometimes has to come before listening and how to take space without stonewalling or abandoning the conversation
💭 The dream underneath the argument - why recurring conflicts are often about something much deeper than the thing we're apparently fighting about
🤝 Why understanding has to come before influence - because people become far more capable of hearing our perspective when they no longer have to fight to make us understand theirs
Great listening isn't passive.
It's an active attempt to understand another human being from the inside out.
And sometimes the most powerful thing we can offer another person isn't an answer, solution or piece of advice.
It's the experience of:
“You listened. You stayed. You understood.”
🎧 Join us for a practical, psychologically informed conversation about listening, attunement and why feeling genuinely heard can transform our relationships at home, at work and everywhere in between.
Topics Covered: Active Listening, Attunement, Validation, Communication, Gottman Method, Conflict Resolution, Emotional Regulation, Psychological Safety, Relationships, Workplace Communication, Curiosity, Empathy, Difficult Conversations.
