How to Be a Good Listener

If something has gone sideways in your friendship, ask your friend to tell you what they’re feeling and thinking. Then be quiet and listen. Resist the urge to interrupt, defend, or answer back. Let them get out everything they need to say. After you clarify that you’ve understood them correctly by repeating back what you heard, ask, “Is it okay if

Harriet Lerner teaches, to listen with the same passion with which we want to be heard.

Listening, I’ve come to understand, is bearing witness to lives unfolding, to lives being discovered. Deep listening, listening compassionately, means guiding, gently nudging, or sometimes shoving people down the path of radical self-inquiry so they can make their way to their own truest selves. Then, and only then, can they lead with the dignity a

2. Take perspective. Spend another moment to see if you can put yourself in your child’s shoes with a sense of empathy and compassion. We tend to treat our children’s behavior as we would a math problem. Instead, look at your children as you might a beautifully told story—with an attitude of appreciation. You and your children are about to write the n