Communication is a cornerstone of any relationship, especially a romantic one, but that doesn't make it an easy thing to master.
Luckily, there's a simple way to strengthen your relationships that can reshape the way you understand each other: active listening.
Kate McCombs has a knack for bringing people together and getting them to open up. As the founder of Sex Geekdom, a global community for people who love having geeky conversations about sexuality, and the creator of Tea and Empathy workshops where participants practice empathetic reflection, she's a sought-after sex and relationships educator who travels the world speaking about sex, consent, empathy, and communication.
She recently spoke at the Explore More Summit about the impact active listening can have on one's relationships, and INSIDER caught up with her to learn more about why it's so powerful, as well as how to put it into practice.
Active listening is about being an engaged listener rather than a passive listener.
Practicing active listening involves checking in with the person who's talking to make sure you're hearing and understanding them properly.
"Active listening is about being fully present and reflective in how you listen to the person that you're supporting," McCombs said. "We can be ingesting information from someone that we are hearing, but there's a layer of presence and processing that's involved in active listening that kind of takes it to another level."
Active listening is work.
Because of the amount of emotional energy that goes into active listening, it's not something that can happen all the time. McCombs said what works for her and her partner is simply asking each other if they'd like to be actively listened to or just have a sounding board without that added level of processing.
"I think it's important to acknowledge that it would be an unsustainable level of emotional labor to require people to active listen all the time," she said. "I think it's helpful in interpersonal relationships, particularly romantic relationships, to clarify when you'd like active listening."
Active listening doesn't make uncomfortable conversations easier, but it helps you move through them more gracefully.
Active listening isn't about knowing the right thing to say. It's about having the mindfulness and humility to sit with discomfort and acknowledge that you don't have the answers. These skills are a great toolkit for difficult conversations with a partner, friend, or loved one.
"If you're having a difficult conversation with someone, having those active listening skills is going to help you move through that much more gracefully because it's allowing you to really hear them rather than getting caught up in your own story about what this means," she said.
It cultivates intimacy.
The very human longing to be seen, heard, and understood often goes unmet in relationships. Active listening is a key component of that intimacy and connection.
"When you can have any sort of intimate relationship — friendships, collegial relationships, familial relationships, romantic ones — where you can get a little bit of that active listening, it can be profoundly nourishing," she said.
Active listening combined with empathy builds an even deeper bond.
Both active listening and empathy require engaging with and striving to understand a person's inner world. Combined, these two skills are what McCombs calls a "communicative superpower."
"Empathy is accelerated by active listening, and I think that those are two particular interpersonal skills that do a tremendous amount of good in increasing the quality of people's relationships," she said.
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