My Listening Experience At Carrabba's Italian Grill

Description of Listening Experience:
My first listening experience took place at Carrabba's Italian Grill late on a Saturday night. I have a long standing tradition with my friend, whenever she comes home from college we meet up and have dinner together. Normally, we talk late into the night about all of the things going on in our lives. On this particular Saturday night, my friend did most of the talking and I, as the listener served as her “sounding board” in order to help her with the opportunity to talk through her problem (Wolvin 2009). My friend has been going to a face-to-face college away from home for exactly a year this spring and she is having a hard time adjusting. I was able to get to open up about her problem by providing a supportive communication climate in which the she felt free to express her feelings and thoughts without judgment. She feels completely isolated at her college. When she first started college she made a few friends but they turned out to be bad influences. One even turned out to be a shoplifter! Needless to say, she is discouraged when it comes to trying to make more new friends. As she talked through her
problems, I could see her confidence and determination to make new friends and really have the full traditional college “experience.” I was careful not to evaluate or judge what my friend was saying. This was very hard because I definitely wanted to share my opinions about things like the full traditional college “experience,” because I am currently attending a very nontraditional online college. Purpose and Behavior as a Listener:
I listened in a therapeutic manner, choosing not to evaluate or judge what was being said.
I did so by using my discriminative and comprehensive listening skills in order to provide the necessary supportive behaviors and responses that enabled my friend to talk through her problem. I also used my empathy skills allowing me to understand the speaker's thoughts and feelings. As I listened to her talk through her problems, I also used the principles of nondirective listening, by offering my friend only the necessary responses such as “uh huh” and nonverbalizations such as head nods. By doing this I was keeping her communicating without directing her to any one particular solution (Wolvin, 2009). During this exercise, I used my therapeutic listening skills to help my friend talk through her problems and reach a
resolution.

Evaluation of Listening Strengths and Weaknesses:
After this experience, I discovered that I have strength and weaknesses that influence my therapeutic listening. Therapeutic listening is defined as listening to help another person talk through a problem or concern (Wolvin & Coakley, 1986). I feel that when it comes to therapeutic listening I have a strength when it comes to having empathy for the speaker. I achieved a high level of empathy with my friend because I have also experienced similar feelings when it comes to making new friends. This directly correlates with second step for developing empathy, if the speaker and listener have been in a similar situation or if they have been in two completely different situations but have experienced similar feelings, they can often achieve a high degree of empathy (Wolvin & Coakley, 1986, p. 282). In contrast, I feel that when it comes to therapeutic listening I have a weakness when it comes to paraphrasing. Paraphrasing is defined as reflecting back to your partner the content and feelings of his message in your own words (Brownell, 2002). After this experience, I realized that my verbal paraphrasing skills need help. During my conversation with my friend I did not use paraphrasing. If I had used paraphrasing I would have shown my friend that I was receiving and understanding her message. I will continue to work on and use my verbal paraphrasing skills in order to turn them into strengths. My other weaknesses included external and internal distractions. External noise includes any kind of physical noise in our environment that distract us from receiving the intended message sent by a communicator. General examples of external noise include others talking in the background, background music, a startling noise and acknowledging someone outside of the conversation. Throughout the restaurant, there were others talking in the background, pots and pans banging together, and background music which made it hard to concentrate on what my friend was saying. Internal noise includes thoughts or feelings, developed from past experiences or current situations, that affect how we receive a message. General examples of internal noise include thoughts, fears, and even stress. While I was listening to my friend some of the internal noises I experienced included thinking about this journal assignment. Other internal noises I experienced while listening included feelings of fear and stress over not finishing my school work. What I Learned About My Listening:
During this experience, I learned that I can use my therapeutic listening skills in order to help others talk through a problem or concern. For example, by talking out her problem my friend found a solution to her problem by using her determination to make new friends and really have the full traditional college “experience.”