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IV.  Commit to active listening with the other person.  Tune into the Message and  "keep your ears on"

(Many years ago---with the dinosaurs when I was in a college communications class I heard a phrase that has stuck prominently in my heart ---"Listening is becoming a lost art".  I believe this is the reason many hurting people do not express their pain---it is hard to find someone to just listen!  I know this has been true in my life...especially when our son was so ill.   People need us to listen...for in hearing ourselves talk a situation out in detail we more often than not solve our own problems and find our own solutions to a situation.  This is why psychologists get paid so much money---to let people solve their own problems by hearing themselves talk it out.)

V.  Develop an understanding of the differences in communication Styles between people.

1. The journalistic style:  main point first in synopsis; straight to The point.
2. The novelist style:  a slow unfolding with all the details; main Point LAST.
   
   (It is a given that my husband will lovingly listen to every word I say IF I speak to him in a journalistic style...short and to the point.  In doing much reading on the subject I understand that 99.9% of the male population and impatient teen-agers listen best this way.  So ladies, be mindful of your excess verbage if you want your husband to be all that you want him to be in a meaningful conversation.  Don’t make him state "and what’s your point?" the point he lost in the third chapter of your twelve chapter conversation.)

VI.  Look at the unspoken as well as the spoken message. Dig deeper Than the spoken word."

(Some people do not believe that our body language can be read...but I believe that it can to a great extent. The Bible says we are a living epistle known and read of all men. Read the unspoken words that people ‘speak’  More often than not you can tell by the way a person sits or stands if he is listening to you or not.  You can also tell by the look on a face if  anything you say will be heard.  Notice the unspoken word and     save much anger and disappointment by scheduling the conversation at another time..)

I trust that this outline will be a help to you as you endeavor to communicate with your husband, children, friends and those who come to you and simply need someone to really listen....listen with the heart and not just the mind...or worse, just with their presence. 

Sometimes I get very concerned---not only about the lack of real communication with the spoken word but also about the volumes of e-mail sent every day by all of us with a computer.  At least by telephone people can hear the emotion in voices...and there can be an immediate exchange of emotion or ideas.  In what we now call land letters there is a certain amount of emotion that can be conveyed in handwriting...or the stationary we choose, or the poems we add....or quotations. ..or in the speed of a letter returned to us.  E-mail affords no face to look at, no style of handwriting, no sound of a voice, or choice of stationary.  Communication is a very personal part of our lives and I fear it is becoming as lost as the art of listening.   

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