Good listeners know how to distinguish between what the other person is saying and the layer of anxiety that’s typically covering their actual words.
When you listen to someone tell a story, recount their day, or share about a situation they are ruminating on, it’s easy to soak in some of their anxiety. It’s an unconscious way of trying to ease the level of angst.
However, as soon as we shift to trying to “fix it”, we’ve lost sight of the most important quality of a good listener: the ability to tease apart the speaker’s anxiety and their actual words.
What would change if you focused on noticing the anxiety of the situation without trying to dissolve it? And would you be able to hear the speaker’s words more clearly if you decided to trust that they know exactly what they need to “fix” their situation? When we trust that the other person has the tools to figure “it” out, then we can also notice anxiety without adopting it.