One of the biggest keys to good dialogue is the openness of those people who are engaging in the dialogue. Openness is not about forgetting or changing your beliefs, but it is about learning to set your beliefs aside in order to better listen and hear what the other person has to share. In dialogue this is known as "suspending." Suspending is all about giving your undivided attention. A common occurrence in dialogue is for the "listener" to not be listening but instead thinking about the all that they want to say the moment the speaker is done talking. I can often tell when someone is listening when I speak or whether they are thinking about something else and I think that most, if not all other people can tell if someone is really listening. Good listening is essential to authentic relationships. If we want authenticity than our attention needs to be tuned in to the person speaking to us.
Another part of openness is being honest when sharing about yourself. Authentic relationships thrive on the vulnerability of each person involved in the conversation. We do not have to share everything with everyone we talk to, but we do need to be open and honest in each conversation. I believe that authentic relationships will thrive as we grow in our communication skills.
Joe, I really liked how you focused on openness and suspending. Last semester I took a religion class that was discussion-based and hardly anyone ever spoke up with the exception of about 2 or 3 people. I think that when you're trying to communicate ideas or thoughts especially in a religious topic, people automatically become guarded and don't allow themselves to be fully open because of the fear that their values and opinions will be overlooked or changed. I always try to be as open as possible because I think that if you don't allow yourself to really think about what comes up in the conversation, you can miss a lot of what the other person is trying to say.
ReplyDeleteI also agree with the point you made about how you can tell if someone is really listening to what you're saying and when they're thinking about something else. This used to really bother me because I can also tell when someone isn't focusing their full attention on what I'm trying to communicate to them and would often just stop trying to communicate with that person over time. I feel like now that I can judge the quality of a conversation, I have much deeper and more personal conversations with people. Those are people that I can begin to trust and I think those good conversations allow me to develop good relationships.