How Active Listening Restores Calm

“There is no shame in expressing your authentic feelings.”
~ Anthon St. Maarten

I’ve mentioned before that I’m highly sensitive, both to the feelings of others and to the environments I find myself in. Many writers and creative types fall into the category of highly sensitive people (HSP).

(If you’re curious to see where you fall on the sensitivity scale, you can take a test.)

It’s both a blessing and a curse. The trait allows us to become keen observers: we catalog and record the minutia of life that others may miss, and those details enrich our stories.

At the same time, we feel deeply, and sense emotional undertones wherever we go, and it can be quite draining. We find it hard to deal with strong emotions even when they’re not directed at us. We are peacemakers, in part because when others calm down, we feel better ourselves.

For several years I worked in employee development for a computer software company. The people who answered the technical support lines had the most stressful jobs in the company. When customers get upset, words start flying, and they aren’t necessarily pretty or even ones that make sense. One of my roles was to help the tech support people manage the daily stress of dealing with irate folks.

Users typically call helplines once they’ve used up their own resources to figure out a problem, and they’re often “on their last nerve,” as my niece would say. In order to help them, the support people first have to diffuse their emotion so they can determine what’s wrong and figure out how to fix the problem.

In team building sessions I conducted where we explored this challenge together, the team leaders came up with some pretty creative ideas for helping the front-line folks shield themselves from the frustration on the other end of the line.

One of them was keeping a Q-TIP on their desks to remember to “Quit Taking It Personally.” Clients weren’t actually upset with them, they were frustrated at not being able to figure out a software problem. But when people are raging at us, it sure feels personal.

Another was to imagine holding a cookie sheet up in front of their faces as a shield to deflect the anger up and over the top of their heads. These visual techniques worked surprisingly well.

So often when we encounter people who are upset, in our desire to help, we unintentionally fan the flames.

For those of us without conflict resolution training, we tend to say well-intentioned, but unhelpful things:

“Calm down!”

“I don’t see what you’re so upset about.”

“It’s not that bad.”

“At least it’s not (something worse).”

In other words, we try to get them to tone down their emotion because their intensity makes us uncomfortable. Or we switch to problem solving mode too early, offering an unsolicited opinion about how they should handle the situation.

(I’m guilty of this at times, and my daughter has to remind me that sometimes she just needs to vent. A friend’s daughter wisely tells her mom, who is a psychotherapist, when she needs her to be a therapist, a friend, or a mom. Isn’t that brilliant?)

When people are upset, the first thing they need, long before they’re ready for any kind of solution to the issue at hand, is to feel heard and validated.

Just the act of someone “allowing” our pain or frustration, rather than shushing us, helps us to start to compose ourselves.

Very often, once we speak to their emotion (rather than the problem), a person who is worked up will start to calm down on their own.

“I can see how sad that makes you.”

“It hurts to be spoken to that way.”

“You really wanted that (whatever), didn’t you?”

“You sound really frustrated.”

This same technique, which psychologists call active listening, works well with little ones, who haven’t yet learned how to handle their big emotions. When my grandsons are starting to spin out, I get down close to their level and acknowledge what they’re feeling. I tell them I know they’re frustrated because they “really, really wanted that (thing they’re not allowed to have).” It’s easy for them to get stuck in the wanting, but I just keep reassuring them that I know they’re upset, and then asking them what else they can think of instead, which redirects them. In a bit, they cave, and tell me about their new toy, in which I show great interest, and off we go. The tantrum is averted.

Writers often talk about the power of words. But when people get really emotional, sometimes we need to look past their words, which can be viewed as just surface “noise.” My sister, the nurse, has such great language for handling people when they are ranting, especially for when she doesn’t actually agree with what they’re saying. Rather than challenging them and fueling the fire, she often says, “Is that how it feels to you?”

It reminds me of an expression the characters in Jane Austen novels use often: “Indeed!” I like it because it’s a polite acknowledgment that gives no hint as to how you actually feel about what’s being said. But it’s still an indication that you’ve heard them.

You know how you feel when you’re overwrought—it’s distressing, and you just want someone to listen to you!

The awareness of that discomfort, and your natural compassion for others, can guide you as you try to help a family member, friend, or coworker to return to a calmer state.

In Jane Austen’s vernacular, maybe offering to “take a turn around the room” (or a stroll down the lane) with our upset friends while they blow off steam is all the balm they need.

Most often, we don’t have to fix things for other people when they’re upset. We just have to “hold space” for them, a term borrowed from psychotherapy that means to validate their emotional state without interfering with it.

Once they calm down, they are likely to consider their options on their own and find one that will work best for them.

Affectionately,

Elaine