267: So Much More than Listening with Shane Birkel
Welcome back to The Couples Therapist Couch! This podcast is about the practice of Couples Therapy. Each week, Shane Birkel interviews an expert in the field of Couples Therapy to explore all about the world of relationships and how to be an amazing therapist.
In this solo episode, Shane talks what it really means to be the listener. Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and your other favorite podcast spots, and Follow and leave a 5-star review.
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The Couples Therapist Couch 267: So Much More than Listening with Shane Birkel
This episode is brought to you by Alma. Visit https://helloalma.com/dg/?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=paid&utm_campaign=privatepractice to learn more
Get the Couples Therapy 101 course: https://www.couplestherapistcouch.com/
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In this solo episode, Shane talks what it really means to be the listener. Hear the listening skills we should all learn, when to be the speaker vs. listener, what to do when your clients are having a hard time being the listener, why affair recovery requires a ton of listening, and the importance of taking a timeout when arguing. Here's a small sample of what you'll hear in this episode:
- Why listening is more than hearing words - and the signals partners really respond to
- How defensiveness and protection block emotional connection
- The importance of taking turns as speaker and listener in heated moments
- Why affair recovery requires deep, steady listening to rebuild safety
- How to stay regulated and present when your partner is overwhelmed
Show Notes
- 267: So Much More than Listening with Shane Birkel
- This episode is brought to you by Alma. Visit https://helloalma.com/dg/?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=paid&utm_campaign=privatepractice to learn more
- [0:12] Welcome to The Couples Therapist Couch
- [1:28] What makes listening more than hearing words?
- [2:23] Why people stop feeling heard
- [6:39] How defensiveness blocks connection
- [11:30] Two speakers, no listeners: the fast breakdown
- [12:00] One speaker, one listener: why it matters
- [15:14] How to be a responsible speaker
- [16:13] What good active listening looks like and the four core listening skills (validation, curiosity, mirroring, accountability)
- [17:40] Getting unstuck from right–wrong thinking
- [18:10] Why consent is essential in emotional conversations
- [21:19] Why affair recovery requires deep listening
- [29:19] Sitting with discomfort
- [30:04] Setting aside resentments through emotional regulation
- [33:26] Supporting healthier speaker–listener balance in therapy
- [33:46] How to take an effective timeout
- [34:55] Common listener pitfalls
- [37:26] How to attune to your partner’s emotional world
- [38:53] Final thoughts from Shane
- This episode is brought to you by Alma. Visit https://helloalma.com/dg/?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=paid&utm_campaign=privatepractice to learn more
What is The Couples Therapist Couch?
This podcast is about the practice of Couples Therapy. Many of the episodes are interviews with leaders in the field of Relationships. The show is meant to help Therapists and Coaches learn how to help people to deepen their connection, but in the process it explores what is most needed for each of us to love, heal, and grow. Each week, Shane Birkel interviews an expert in the field of Couples Therapy to explore all about the world of relationships and how to be an amazing therapist.
Learn more about the Couples Therapy 101 course: https://www.couplestherapistcouch.com/
Find out more about the Couples Therapist Inner Circle: https://www.couplestherapistcouch.com/inner-circle-new
Transcript
Please note: this transcript is not 100% accurate.
00:00
It's really important that the person who had the affair is going to have to do a lot of listening in order to repair that feeling of connection and safety in the relationship.
00:18
The podcast for couples therapists, marriage counselors, and relationship coaches to explore the practice of couples therapy. And now, your host, Shane Birkel.
00:33
Hey everybody. Welcome back to The Couples Therapist Couch. This is Shane Birkel, and this is the podcast that's all about the practice of couples therapy. Thank you so much for tuning in. I'm a licensed marriage and family therapist, and the goal of this podcast is to help you learn how to more effectively work with couples and possibly even learn how to have a better relationship. The episode this week is brought to you by Alma. They make it easy to get credentialed with major insurance plans at enhanced reimbursement rates.
01:02
Alma handles all of the paperwork and guarantees payment within two weeks. Visit helloalma.com or click on the link in the show notes to learn more. A few weeks ago, I did an episode on communication and talking about communication skills. I realized, part of it, what we were talking about, the speaker and the listener, and I realized I could go a lot deeper into the experience of the listener.
01:28
and what listening really means. We were talking about it in the inner circle, uh couples therapist inner circle, which is a membership for therapists who want to learn more about couples therapy. And we have these discussions about how to work with couples and how to be more effective as therapists. And so we were recently talking about it and I decided I need to do a whole episode just on listening. And when I use the word listening, I'm not just talking about
01:56
sitting there and taking in the words of the other person. There's so much more to it. And I think listening doesn't capture everything that I'm trying to talk about, but I'll spend some time sort of explaining what I mean by that. And a lot of times people, you couples will come in to therapy and they will, you know, listening is a big part of it, right? They'll know that there's something wrong in the communication. They'll know that there's something
02:23
you know, where they're not feeling heard or seen or understood. But, you know, it goes so much deeper again. It's about the connection that couples feel with each other. Or even like, if you think about the flow of communication between two people, right? A healthy relationship requires that flow to be happy. And that's what makes you experience connection with another person. You may have known people in your life
02:53
where it feels very much like they're in their own world and they're not interested in taking in your reality. And it feels almost like a wall is up and it's hard to connect with someone like that. It's hard to experience the feeling that they know you or that they're interested in you or that they, or that you truly know them perhaps could go in that direction.
03:18
or that you really know what's going on for them. And I talk about, you know, one of the most important skills for couples is the ability to give each other feedback, even if it's difficult feedback. And we want to do that in a respectful way. And we want to be considerate of the other person. But if you have couples and they're just sort of uh avoiding conflict and they're tiptoeing around each other's emotions and they're afraid they're going to hurt each other's feelings and there's not enough truth.
03:47
coming into their relationship, they're going to start feeling disconnected and they're going to start feeling like they don't know each other and that they might start making a lot of assumptions about what the other person wants or what they're feeling or what they need. And it requires that good communication to share with each other. This is my reality. This is my experience. This is what's going on for me. Uh, so that the relationship can get deeper and deeper.
04:15
I use the word safety a lot. think that creates a sense of safety. If my partner knows the things that are hurtful to me, it's going to give me more confidence that they're willing to try to do things that will make it so I don't feel hurt as often. Sometimes when someone has a hard time with listening, ah they...
04:43
people lose that sense of safety in their relationship. They lose the sense of connection. And I hear this all the time with the couples I work with. And I think there are some different ways this can look, right? Sometimes it looks like protection or defensiveness. Let me take a step back. Before I get into some examples of what this looks like, I also want to say, I want to start by saying, I think most people have good intentions, right?
05:12
people are really good people with good intentions who really care about their partner and they just don't have the skills to make the other person feel heard and seen and understood, the listening skills so to speak. And I think a big part of that comes from our society and it comes from people's individual wounding. And so I certainly want to avoid blaming uh individual people in relationships, but it's
05:42
If you're feeling this, it's an opportunity. I like to look at it more as of like, not here to tell you what you're doing wrong, but if you start to learn more about what would work better, then hopefully it'll give you hope to practice it and to work at it. And I think these things are like skills that you can learn, like learning a new language or learning to play an instrument. You know, you, you might not be super skilled at it when you begin.
06:12
but the more you practice and the more effort you put into it, the better you can get. So let me lay out some examples of what, know, when the listening is not happening, when it's not flowing, the communication is not flowing, you know, what that could look like. Sometimes it looks like protection or defensiveness, right? So if my partner says,
06:39
You said something yesterday that was really hurtful to me. I feel like my own ego or my own sense of self might feel threatened. Like I don't want my partner to think that I'm a bad person. I don't want to feel like I'm a bad person. So I go into this place of protection, uh, right, or,
07:06
If my partner is not communicating from a really healthy place, they could be saying, you're such a jerk. You did something to hurt me yesterday. I can't believe you did that to me. Right. Then I'm really likely to go into protection or defensiveness because now you're trying to point the finger at me. And what we often do in relationships is the other partner will point the finger back at the other person. And again,
07:35
There are opportunities on both sides to uh really make improvements in how that communication is happening. A lot of times when couples come into therapy, each partner wants to accuse the other partner of what they're doing wrong. And just because your partner might be doing a lot of things wrong doesn't give you the right to be disrespectful or
08:03
emotionally hurtful on your side of it. Right? So I always try to encourage people focus on your side of the street. You have to focus on being considerate and thoughtful and respectful. Even if you're angry at your partner, even if your partner's doing things that are hurtful to you, you absolutely have the right to have boundaries and to protect yourself. But you can do that in a respectful way. You can do that in a considerate way.
08:31
And I think we have to remember this is somebody who I'm in a relationship with. This is someone who apparently loves me and cares about me and wants the best for me and someone who I love and care about and want the best for them. Right? if that is the case, if it's not the case, then we have to be having it. We should be having a different conversation about whether you should be in this relationship or not. But if it is the case, can I see that this is a good person?
09:01
who might just not be very good at listening or who might not, who might have certain things that are not strengths for them. That will help me stay in respect as I'm communicating on my side. Like even if my partner is making me feel super frustrated and angry and hurt and everything else, can I see that on some level they have good intentions and they still want this relationship to work?
09:30
And from that place, I can sort of remember to be respectful in the way that I'm trying to present it. But so if I'm experiencing some, you know, if I feel hurt by something that's happening, a lot of times people go into protection or defensiveness, right? So I'll say, well, I'm, I'm not the problem. You're the problem. Right. And what happens is that other person isn't going to feel heard. They're not going to feel validated.
10:00
their emotions. They're going to feel like either I'm just making excuses or I'm telling them why they shouldn't see it that way. And again, when I'm doing that, I'm protecting my own ego state or sense of self. I'm trying to convince them that I am not a bad guy. I am not a bad person. And I might try to explain it away. I'm trying to explain to them why they shouldn't feel that way. Again,
10:30
It could be coming from really good intentions. I don't want them to feel bad. I don't want them to think that I was trying to hurt them when I did whatever I did yesterday. So I'm working really hard to convince them why they shouldn't feel bad. And that might be coming from good intentions, but what it's doing and inadvertently, it's creating a sense for them that I don't get it, that I'm not listening. I'm not taking in their perspective. I'm not, they probably feel really minimized.
11:00
or invalidated in their experience of it. And so another way that this happens is that if they're trying to give me feedback about something they feel heard about, right? So it's an opportunity where another opportunity where I could be a listener for them. Sometimes the person who should be listening in the setup, they start feeling really misunderstood.
11:30
Themself and again, they might try to explain why the other person shouldn't feel that way the reality This is part of the challenge is that there's not a lot of space for both people's reality at the same time And this is a mistake couples run into where they're both flooded. They're both overwhelmed. They're both in their emotions and There's two speakers and no listeners
12:00
both people are feeling like they want that experience of being heard and understood, but no one's in the right state of mind to be able to listen. And this is why oftentimes I talk to people about taking turns. Like you, we have to take turns, uh, right? Because, uh, it helps a lot if there's only one speaker and one listener at a time. And
12:27
I think that consent is important. If you are seeking for your partner to be the listener, it's good to ask them, is this a good time for you to listen? Let's try to keep it to less than 20 minutes. And that you set it up in a way that the other person knows what is happening. And I'm going to get more into the skills and the how to set it up and what to do.
12:56
when you know if you're trying to make it work well. But I want to stay with some of these examples of where it's hard to be a listener. Sometimes where people go into sometimes they'll go into the protection or the defensiveness again protecting their own sense of self. They might be feeling misunderstood and again another thing that happens is they might try to start fixing the problem. One partner's coming to them
13:24
just wanting to vent and feel heard for their emotions, for what's going on for them. And the listener begins to try to fix it and say, well, have you tried this? Well, did you do this? Well, I don't understand why you feel bad. We had a good day. and again, it's very invalidating for the person who is trying to feel heard. Now,
13:49
It makes sense. Not only are we socialized to, you know, if we hear a problem to fix it, and there are some male and female dynamics to this, right? As males were very much socialized in this society, at least to, know, when we hear a problem to fix it. And sometimes that's a good thing. Sometimes that's helpful. Sometimes that is what your partner might want. But
14:15
I think it's important to tune in to develop the skill of tuning into your own emotions that, know, a lot of times if one partner is trying to feel heard, the other partner is going into some level of like fight or flight or freeze or fix mode. And it becomes more about defending your identity than it does about understanding your partner.
14:45
And your body doesn't know the difference, right? Right. It's almost like it's being physically threatened. When you start feeling triggered, when you start feeling overwhelmed, it's hard for you to be able to be a good listener and to be soft and warm and thoughtful about what your partner's talking about. And this is exactly probably what your partner's looking for. And if you're on edge,
15:14
then your partner's nervous system recognizes that and it's going to feel much more like an argument than it is about a speaker and a listener. And again, I want to emphasize for the speaker, the more you can be respectful, the more you can speak from the first person, the more you can say, this is my experience, this is my reality, this is what I'm making up about what's happening, the better because then the listener, the listener's job is just to focus on
15:44
the speaker's experience in reality. It's not to decide who's right or wrong. It's not to figure out who the bad guy is. It's simply the listener doesn't even have to agree with what the speaker is saying. But if you've agreed to be the listener, it's really important that you stay in that role. Right. And some, some good, some skills for the listener to use.
16:13
is simply uh mirroring back what the speaker is saying, validating, is more mirroring back is just repeating what they said, really just saying like, what I hear you saying is that, you know, when I said the things I said yesterday, you were really hurt. And then validating is letting them know that it makes sense, right? Saying something like, yeah, I get it. I was
16:42
really angry and it makes sense that you were hurt by the things I was saying. Moving into curiosity is a really good skill for the listener to use, asking more questions, you know, tell me or even just saying something like, tell me more about what that was like for you. Help me understand, you know, what I could do better. You want to be careful not to go too much into problem solving or again,
17:10
If you say, me know what I could do better. It could start to move into a sort of planning or problem solving conversation. And that's fine. But sometimes couples are rushing to the problem solving or, or again, it feels more like figuring out who's right or wrong or a truthy kind of conversation of what, could we do better? And either one or both of the partners hasn't felt heard.
17:40
adequately and it kind of derails the conversation because on one level they don't really agree. They're almost arguing over the feeling level of it and then it makes the problem solving really confusing. So when you're when you're we're talking about the speaker and the listener and the good communication, it's almost like there's different phases. Phase one is let's make sure both people feel heard and seen and understood. And at that point, you don't have to agree.
18:08
You could be talking about something actually that you completely disagree on. You know, if you're trying to make a decision about like where we're going to go on vacation and one person wants to go to the East coast and one person wants to go to the West coast. So, so, you know, I'm listening to my partner talk about wanting to go to the East coast and let's say I really don't want to. It's not the time for me to make my case on my position.
18:39
Right? It's, if I'm agreeing to be the listener, I'm just being curious. I'm validating why they want what they want. I'm making sure that I understand why this is important to them. And I'm really taking the time to make it all about their perspective. Right? To be the listener is a generous gift that I'm willing
19:05
to be present with my partner's experience and their reality, even if I don't get it, even if I don't understand. I'm just creating space again for that information to flow. ah I'm receiving the information without judgment, without criticism, without blame, just taking in their perspective. Building a private practice can be challenging.
19:33
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20:01
Plus when you join Alma, you'll get access to time-saving tools for intakes, scheduling, treatment plans, progress notes, and more in their included platform. Alma helps you spend less time on administrative work and more time offering great care to your clients. Visit helloalma.com or click the link in the show notes to learn more. Again, I want to emphasize this. You don't have to stand there and take abusive
20:30
types of communication, if your partner is sort of tearing you down, right? But if they're being responsible about how they're sharing it and they're saying, this is my experience, this is what's happening for me, this is what I want, then you're just being really curious and staying with them.
20:50
Now, let me give you some more concrete examples. I mean, this is a big part of a fair recovery, right? And this is a big challenge in a fair recovery because when there has been an affair that's happened, the person who's been betrayed is going to need a lot of this listening energy to recreate the safety
21:19
in their relationship. It's really important that the person who had the affair is going to have to do a lot of listening in order to repair that feeling of connection and safety in the relationship. Right? So what happens sometimes is, you know, when an affair happens, it's normal. I mean, there are many different ways that it can play out and there everybody has different
21:48
emotional experiences of it. so there's a lot of variety in the way that it can play out. But what happens a lot of the time is the person who's been betrayed will often begin to question their value, question whether they should be able to trust this person, question themself, right? How did I allow myself to be deceived in this way? Question their own worthiness, question their own attractiveness.
22:17
that they just begin to, it sort of shatters the person who's been betrayed. And on a fundamental level, one, they're questioning themselves and two, they're questioning the relationship. Understandably, that makes a lot of sense. And it can be hard for the other person to make space for this, right? Because on one level,
22:46
Most of the time, most of the people who I work through affairs with, the person who had the affair is extremely guilty that they did that and they feel terrible that they made their partner feel this way. And they want to avoid feeling terrible. So they have a hope that we can just get through this as quickly as possible and get back to feeling like everything's fine.
23:16
But unfortunately the person who's been betrayed often needs to talk about it and go over it and feel like the other person is willing to make space for their reality.
23:28
Another part of that is that the person who had the affair may be thinking in their mind, well, I love, I love my partner. Like if they're doing the affair recovery work, they're coming back to their partner. They may be thinking, I totally am done with the affair. Uh, that was a huge mistake. I'm coming back to my partner. I love them more than anything.
23:56
Now I realize how much I value my marriage. I value my relationship. I'm totally committed to this. And they may be thinking all that in their mind and even telling their partner that, but their partner doesn't really know what's in the other person's mind, even if they're telling them that, because they thought that that was true before the affair happened. And then the affair happened and now they're questioning, can I even trust this person? And so
24:24
the person who had the affair might be sitting there thinking that everything's fine now. There's no risk. I'm not going to do that again. Let's just move on and be happy. And, the person who, who has, you know, been betrayed is going to need a lot more time to build back that trust and to see the, the partner following through on, you know, the commitment and the
24:53
behaviors that lead to building trust and love and connection with each other. And by the way, it takes a very long time to recover from affairs. And obviously there have been episodes on that that you can check out and I'd be happy to do more episodes on recovering from affairs. But for this, for the sake of this, it's going to be super important for the person who had the affair.
25:22
to do a ton of listening. And so one of the things that happens, the betrayed partner will start to talk about, feel real, you know, let's say it's like three months after the affair or six months after the affair, which in some ways is a short period of time in the healing process. Uh, cause this is a big deal. And so let's say it's six months later,
25:51
they're starting to feel like a little bit better in the relationship, but there are still times where something happens and the betrayed partner is reminded of the affair and they go into a huge state of emotional overwhelm. What happens is what they want from
26:16
their partner is the ability to listen, the ability to be present with that, the ability to say, makes sense that you're having these strong emotions. Often accountability is a really big part of listening. In this case, they could say something like, of course you're upset. I had an affair. I completely betrayed you. I am so sorry. It makes sense that that would come to your mind again sometimes.
26:43
Right. And, tell me more about what that feels like for you. And they're allowing the betrayed partner to have their experience. They're not trying to fix it. They're not trying to explain it away. They're not being defensive, you know, like defensiveness might sound like, well, I only had the affair because the relationship was terrible anyway. Right. Or
27:08
If they're trying to explain it away, they might say, well, that was six months ago and it was a mistake. you going to, are you going to make me continue to relive this the rest of our life? You know, blah, blah, blah. And again, they're, they're trying to avoid going into their own shame and guilt because they feel so terrible about how much they've hurt their partner. They might not even consciously realize that it's something that, you know, can be uncovered in therapy, but
27:37
If the person who had the affair allows themselves to go into the shame and the guilt, it can be a helpful part of the process. Now we don't want the listener to entirely spiral into their own shame. you know, for example, it might look like them saying, well, I'm such a terrible person. Uh, nobody would ever love me. I always make mistakes.
28:07
Because now they're turning into the speaker and in some dynamics, the partner then begins caretaking for them and which is more of the listening energy. The person who's been betrayed, you know, the focus is lost on them and they don't, they're not getting the healing that they need. So that can be a, an unhealthy dynamic that can emerge in these types of situations.
28:36
But there's a healthy way for them to experience the guilt and the shame that sort of shows the partner that I truly feel bad about what I did. And it would feel more like the sadness of compassion toward the other person. It would feel more like I'm going into my emotions as a listener, but it's because I feel how hurt you are. It's because I feel compassion toward you and
29:07
what I did to you. And that can be a very valuable part of the healing for people. it requires, you know, sometimes I'll use this phrase like sit with the discomfort. And this is another thing that we learn in our society that we're away, we're socialized is that anytime we feel uncomfortable, it means that there's a problem and we should get away from it as quickly as possible. And that's what happens when people are trying to be good listeners.
29:37
When there's a speaker listener dynamic and the listener's having a hard time, they might be feeling a huge amount of discomfort and they're trying to get away from it by fixing or by being defensive or all the things I talked about before. And so it's really important to, if your partner is feeling very emotional,
30:04
How can you learn to sit with the discomfort? How can we reframe that as something that's healthy for their relationship? If I can sit with the discomfort as my partner's upset, that uh can be a really healthy growth opportunity for us in the relationship. And I'm not just talking about a fair recovery situations. Now I'm talking about
30:33
Anytime my partner is emotionally upset, having the capacity to be present with them, to give them the sense that I'm being warm, that I care, that I'm validating their experience. Right? So both people have the right to their own experience and their own reality. So
31:02
If I'm being the listener, I want to tell my partner, makes sense that you feel that way. I hear how important this is to you. I didn't realize how much it hurt you. And part of this is a personal individual process because what happens for people in cup, I see it in couples therapy and I feel it and experience it in my own life and my own relationship. If my partner is coming to me talking about
31:31
things that they're upset about, how, you know, things are getting emotional about, and especially if it has to do with something I did wrong, let's say my nervous system starts to get escalated. The way I talk about it is like there are inner child parts of me that start to get activated in my nervous system that are scared, right? And a lot of us have different experiences of emotions growing up. And sometimes I refer to it as your own, your own personal wounding.
32:01
We all have our own personal wounding, whatever that is for you, whatever that looks like. And it's different for every individual person, depending on what you grew up with and what you've been through. But when my partner is trying to talk about something emotional, uh my own wounding might become activated. And it's for me, it's for each person individually to
32:30
understand how to work through your own wounding and your own emotional stuff. We can provide the listening for each other and we can get better at that. But on some level, you don't want it to feel like a codependent energy where I need my partner to
32:56
It's like I'm waiting for my partner to truly listen to me in order for me to feel healed and feel complete as a human being. And it's hard to describe, you know, I don't, I don't want to give you an excuse not to work on listening because it is important, but it's almost one of these things where, you know, I have couples sometimes who come in and they're like, yeah, we were arguing for five hours until three o'clock in the morning.
33:26
To me, that's a sign that it's more of like there's a codependent energy coming into it that those wounded parts of you have come into the conversation. And it's almost like no matter what happens, we're not going to feel better. Taking a timeout can be a really valuable part of this process. And the purpose of that is that I'm going to go, if we take a timeout, I'm going to go take responsibility for my own parts.
33:57
My partner is going to go take responsibility for their own parts. And when we come back, like my partner can still express all the ways in which they're upset at me or they're hurt by me or all of those things. But the goal would be, can I sit with that where, you know, I'm able to make good eye contact. I'm able to, you know, slow my breathing at least enough or regulate my nervous system at least enough.
34:26
to be present with them, to not bring in my own reality, to not bring in my own resentment, my own passive aggressive comments, right? To really make it about them, to be able to listen with the intention to understand, not to answer their questions or fix their problems. And that's really what we're shooting for. And again, if you are feeling unheard,
34:57
The best thing you can do is slow down, make sure you're speaking from a respectful place. And we want to be careful that the speaker isn't moving in to a place of blame, even about the listing, right? Where they're saying like, well, you're not listening to me. You're not using the skills. You know, the therapist said we should do it this way, right? Um, because then that would mean the speaker's activated in a way where
35:27
you know, they're not communicating in a healthy way and they're setting their partner up to be defensive at that point. But again, if you're the listener and your partner's doing that, you have the opportunity to see through that, right? It's not that my partner is trying to attack me. It's just that they're feeling hurt or afraid or touching on their wounding. And I have the opportunity to truly listen and give them
35:57
a generous gift by staying present with them. The mistake on the listener part would be, well, you're not using the skills. You're not being nice in the way you're saying it to me. There's always things you can blame the other person for, but if you start going into blaming, you are the one who's not using the skills, if that makes sense. If your partner's truly being mean, then to me, that's where it's time to take a time out.
36:25
Let's take some space apart. Let's take it. Let's breathe. Take a deep breath. And I'm focused on myself. When I come back to the conversation, I am focused on I'm going to make a commitment to be respectful, to communicate using the skills, to make sure I understand whether I'm the speaker or the listener and to follow through on the plan. Right. And again, if that keeps getting derailed, it might be
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time to see a therapist or to get some support or to even to get some sort of guide about how to communicate well. So just to go back to when we're the listener, we're truly giving a generous gift to the other person. We're saying for this moment, I'm going to set aside my own story and my own stuff, my own needs.
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so that the other person can truly feel seen. And it's not, it's not about being passive. It's truly like, I have to be, I have to feel solid enough in myself. I have to, it's coming from a place of empowerment. It's truly an act of love, right? It's, it's, it's me making the choice that I love this person and I'm willing to be the listener.
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and I'm willing to, again, set aside my own stuff once in a while in order to make them feel heard and seem understood. The good news is you don't have to have the answers. Just keep asking your partner questions. Like, what do you need me to understand right now? And just listen, no fixing, no defending, no counterpoint. Just be present with them. And even if you're having a hard time, just say, I'm having a hard time knowing what to ask, but I want you to know
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I'm just trying to be present with you. I'm trying to give you the space to feel what you're feeling. know, sometimes words just get in the way, right? People just want to feel like you care and like you're present with them. I hope this was helpful. Let me know if you have any follow up questions about that. This is Shane Burkle from the Couples Therapist Couch. Thanks for being here. If it resonated, definitely share it with someone who
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you know, you think it might be helpful for definitely don't send it to your partner and be like, Hey, you need to listen better. Listen to this. Uh, even in that you can be thoughtful and generous and say, Hey, I think we could both use some help in the way that we listen to each other. Uh, there were some things in this episode that made me feel like would be helpful to me. Here's what would make me feel like I was being heard, right? Here's what I'm looking for in a listener.
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right, to sort of personalize it. So again, I hope this was helpful and I hope all of you have a great week. Take care. The episode this week is brought to you by Alma. They make it easy to get credentialed with major insurance plans at enhanced reimbursement rates. Alma handles all of the paperwork and guarantees payment within two weeks. Visit HelloAlma.com or click on the link in the show notes to learn more. And thank you again, everybody. This is Shane Birkel and this is The Couples Therapist Couch.
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podcast. It's all about the practice of couples therapy. I hope you have a great week and we'll see you next time. Bye everybody.