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Listening is a skill, but many of us do it poorly.

If we can learn to do it better, it can produce dramatic improvements in our lives.

I am going to teach you five stock phrases I use when I do reflective listening, active listening, or looping back.

It goes by a bunch of different names, but it's the same basic skill.

Reflective Listening

Listening is one of the great, unheralded skills in communication.

Most of us think about communication as being about talking and how we say things, or about being articulate, creative, thoughtful, funny, charismatic, and so on.

But I find, especially the last 10 years of my life or so, that the most important skill is listening, but listening does involve actually talking in certain ways.

So I want to teach you about one particular listening skill called reflective listening, or active listening, or sometimes looping back.

Reflective listening involves basically repeating what someone has just said in order to confirm that you've understood it, to show that you're paying attention, and to give people an opportunity to elaborate on their feelings.

If you remember my previous video on empathic listening (video links in video description), that video talked about how one way to help people feel comforted when they're emotionally upset is to give them an opportunity to elaborate on their feelings.

Reflective listening gives people an opportunity to do that.

It's an incredibly powerful skill, and I strongly recommend you take some time to use it. I'm going to give you these five phrases that I use when I do reflective listening.

I first want to give you a caution, and the caution is that this is a kind of technique. Sometimes we think techniques are gimmicks or devices or mirror techniques and that when we use them, we're being insincere or inauthentic. I think that's a real risk.

If you use these things without an authentic desire to listen to people, to care about them, to be kind to them, and to show concern and empathy to them, if that authentic feeling isn't there inside of you, then I think these skills can come across as gimmicks and techniques. People might even call you on them and say, "Oh, don't use that BS psychobabble on me."

But what I find much more common is that when I enter an interaction authentically, with the sincere intention to listen to somebody, to help, and to understand what they're saying, then I can use these phrases and people don't even notice them.

They certainly don't notice I'm using any technique. And I don't even notice I'm using a technique anymore, because I've incorporated this so much into my own personal style.

I do worry that some of my friends and family will watch this video or read this post and notice that I've been using these phrases with them, and maybe they'll think I'm being inauthentic, but that's not the case. This is just the way I communicate now. So let's go over these five phrases I use when I do reflective listening.

 5 Phrases to Use in Reflective Listening

1. “You are …”

Let's imagine the scenario we're talking about is a person who's angry with us because we've showed up late for a date or a meeting. We start talking to them and they're really angry.

So I just say, "You're angry. You're angry with me for showing up to this meeting late. You think that I'm being disrespectful to you by showing up late to this appointment."

I just say, "You are," and then I insert whatever I'm observing.

Notice that these phrases aren't really the key to empathic listening. The key is focusing on what other people are saying or feeling. Then we fill in the blank in these phrases.

These phrases are just a template to insert your observations. The much more fundamental skill is being observant, paying attention to people's nonverbal behavior and the context so that we know what they're feeling.

But as we're trying to determine what they mean and what they're feeling, we can use these phrases to allow them to elaborate on their feelings. So someone starts to get angry with me, and one of the things I might say is, "You're really angry with me." So, “You are,” and then fill in the blank.

2. “It sounds like…“

I might say, "It sounds like you're really upset with me for showing up to this meeting late. It sounds like you think I'm being disrespectful to you for coming to our meeting late."

So, “It sounds like,” and then insert your observations.

3. “It seems like…“

This phrase is very closely related to number 2. I didn't promise you these would all be completely unique, but these are the phrases that I use, and you can alternate them so they don't start to sound like a gimmick.

You observe their behavior and say, "It seems like you're really frustrated with me for showing up to this meeting late. It seems like your perception is that I constantly come to these appointments late, and that maybe this shows some disrespect for you or that I don't care."

So I just say, "It seems like," and then I insert my observation.

4. “What I'm hearing is…"

“What I'm hearing is a lot of anger at me for coming late to our date. What I'm hearing is frustration. What I'm hearing is sadness."

So, “What I'm hearing is,” and then insert the observation. Then be quiet and listen to the remainder of what people are saying. That's actually a key to listening, as well.

5. “You seem to be saying…”  

"You seem to be saying that when I show up late to these dates, that it gets you really angry." Or, "You seem to be saying that if I am not always on time, that it reflects disrespect to you and to our meetings. You seem to be saying that my coming late reflects badly on me as a person or on my character."

So, “You seem to be saying,” and then insert the observation.

Summary

So that's it. Those are five phrases that I frequently use when I'm trying to listen carefully to people and demonstrate to them that I'm listening to them and I'm trying to give them an opportunity to elaborate on how they're feeling. I do this so I can understand their feelings, intentions, thoughts and beliefs, and so that I can do a better job listening so that I can do a better job communicating.

These are, in my experience, incredibly powerful techniques.

They must be used with an authentic intention or else they might come across as gimmicks. But if you use these phrases sincerely and with an authentic intention to be kind and helpful, I think you'll find it can transform your relationships and dramatically improve your skills as a listener.