Coaching Lessons that will help your Marriage

I remember many years ago (over twenty years ago to be precise) when Grace and I attended our pre-marital counseling classes one of the valuable lesson I learnt then was the importance of communication in marriage. I learned that communication was not just about talking but more importantly about listening. “Listening is more important than talking that’s why God gave us one mouth and two ears so that we listen twice as much as we talk”, our Pastor told us.

We all love talking but rarely do we take time to listen especially if you are an extrovert or a talker like me. In order to be a great communicator one must focus not just on how you relay the information but on how well you listen. Going past merely talking to listening requires a great discipline. As much as listening is good, how you listen is even better. Most people do not think about how they listen. Because of our self-centered nature we default into what in coaching we call self-focused listening. This is where we listen to what makes meaning to us, attention is on me, my own needs and what this conversation can do for me. I have found myself many times operating in this lower level of listening when we are having a conversation with Grace. I will listen only to that which is important to me, that which will provide the necessary ammunition for my rebuttal or that which will give me an opportunity to tell her what she needs to do. And this has often left Grace annoyed and frustrated.

A better way to listen is what we call in coaching others-focused listening. Here you listen to what is significant to the other person. You ask yourself “what does this mean to the other person?” “What does this mean to my husband or to my wife?” Attention is on the other person and what they are communicating. This requires dying to yourself dear husband even when everything within you is trying to shift to the solution mode to actually hearing what your wife’s cry is. What do they mean by that?

However good this level of listening is, there’s even a better way, a more excellent way of listening and that is what in coaching we call Intuitive Listening. In the coming days will dwell more on this level of listening because I believe this is what will transform us for extraordinary conversations at home with our spouse and kids and even in our other relationships.