Listening Exercise: A Key to Improving Relationships

How Focusing on Your Partner's Words Can Transform Communication

A few years ago, I wrote about a short exercise that can be used as a springboard to improve relationships. It was a listening exercise, the main instruction of which is to listen to your partner and notice all the ways in which you feel like intervening in the conversation/correcting it/reading emails. But instead of going with your instinct, you inhibit all these behaviors. Instead, you listen quietly, reflect to your partner what you heard, and even ask questions about the topic, aiming to help him/her understand himself/herself better (i.e., not to lead him/her to see your point of view).

My original recommendation was to perform this exercise twice a week, with one partner being the speaker and the other listening, monitoring themselves, reflecting, and summarizing. For the second time, the couple switches roles.

#### Negotiation and Heartfelt Conversations

- How to negotiate with terrorists (and with family members)

- How to talk to your partner heart-to-heart to resolve emotional tension

I developed this exercise based on the "sensory focus exercise," well-known to couple therapists, designed to improve sexuality, which I also wrote about here. The original sexuality exercise is actually a form of meditation while touching. The instruction for the couple is to touch each other, each time one of them is passive and the other is active. The main point is that each should focus as much as possible on their own experience. The toucher focuses on the experience of being touched and checks with themselves how they like to touch, with what intensity, which textures of the skin, which parts of the partner's body, with which of their body parts, etc.

#### Difficulty Practicing at Home

Even today, I strongly believe in these exercises. In fact, they are so effective that sometimes I dedicate entire therapy sessions with couples to have them perform the listening exercise with my help. Together, we locate the barriers and soften them patiently while mobilizing self-compassion. The reason I started performing the exercises in the meetings is that despite the good will and the need, many couples are unable to achieve this on their own. Life intervenes in all kinds of ways. Sometimes they plan to practice, but then a silly fight breaks out, and the motivation drops. Sometimes the child gets sick on the very evening when they wanted to practice, and sometimes they just forget from exhaustion.

Considering these realities, I began to check, first on myself, what happens when these exercises are performed in a one-sided position. That is, is there any benefit in performing the listening exercise, or performing the sensory focus exercise, even without our partner being aware of it? And my answer is an unequivocal yes.

I remember well the first time I decided to try it. My husband and I were on a family vacation and found ourselves trapped in a few days of frustrating communication that got nowhere and brought us no closer. I was sitting in the kitchen while he was cooking, and I decided to do the exercise at that moment to understand how much I was contributing to the dynamic that was driving me crazy.

That evening, as he spoke, I suppressed all my instinctive reactions. I didn't argue with him about the facts, I didn't point out that he was repeating himself, I didn't rush him to get to the bottom line. I wanted to do all these, I felt it in my stomach, but I didn't allow myself. Instead, I listened carefully to what he had to say, and then reflected back to him what I was hearing, without trying to influence things.

After his response confirmed to me that I understood him correctly, I completed the exercise by asking him more questions that encouraged him to delve deeper into the topic that preoccupied him. From the distance of time, I no longer remember the subject, but I remember the complete surprise I had from this experience. All the traffic that blocked the connection between us in those few days was released.

There are several reasons for this. First, when I started paying attention to the ways in which I felt like intervening in the conversation, I realized how much noise I was introducing into the dialogue between us, and how little I was really listening to him. This realization took down the accusing finger that was pointed at him and directed me to take a little more responsibility for the explosions. Second, without him knowing what had changed, my partner responded to my listening. He felt more understood, more contained, and by not reacting to him with stress reactions, I prevented his entry into our negative loop.

The vacation took a positive turn from that moment, and I was left under the strong impression that this listening exercise is especially wonderful because it can be done alone. This feature makes it possible to do it even when you don't feel like asking your partner for cooperation and when you don't feel like admitting to him that we actually want to take responsibility for our part.

Similarly, it is also possible to perform a variation of the sensory focus exercise without formally sharing it with your partner. The variation I propose in this case is to suggest to the partner to experiment with devotion to touch and then switch roles, and this as an appetizer for sex and not as an exercise to improve sexuality. Assuming the offer is accepted, the offerer who is aware of the additional layers of the exercise can use this opportunity to improve his ability to be present with all his senses in the here and now of physical intimacy. At the same time, the partner usually simply welcomes the invitation to contact and the good intention behind it.

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