You are looking for that particular someone.

Or you are looking for “your People”.

Or you are looking for a coach, a counsellor, a mentor, …

How do you choose and what do you look for?

How do you know that they are trustworthy?

This is important for any business or other relationship: TRUST!

Research has shown that mutually supportive relationships are key to stress reduction and resilience. 

What does a good relationship look like? How do I develop and grow in my relationships?

Henry Cloud says this: “Understanding to trust someone, you need to feel heard and understood. The other person should make a sincere effort to listen to your perspective, needs and feelings. They need to be able to communicate back to you an accurate understanding of what’s important to you” (from a recent post on X)

So, how do you do this? Active listening!

1.     Be an active listener.

·       Reflect back what you have heard (for clarity and connection)

·       Paraphrase what you have heard, too

·       In the end or at a good place for a “pause”, summarize

2.     Be an empathetic listener – use your eyes, ears, brain and hart to listen.  I think “walking in their shoes” is what is the common metaphor for this.

First, make sure your heart and mind are in the right place to listen -  a calm  state to receive the person’s message. Then there are similar stages  to active listening for empathetic listening (from Steven Covey): reflecting back or mimicking what has been said and then rephrasing the content. Then you focus on EMOTIONS: reflecting and rephrasing the emotions being shared.  This allows the speaker to feel more heard and accepted. Then trust can be built.

3.     Be Vulnerable as a Model so your friend is allowed to be Vulnerable, too.

4.     Bur before you can be too vulnerable, you have to establish TRUST – how to?

·       Start small with small talk – introductions, finding things in common, helping - safe topics.

5.     Acknowledge and name emotions – yours and theirs – and together look for the roots of the emotions

6.     Accept the relationship and the person where they are at

7.     More about being vulnerable

8.     Of course, there is the connection of things in common and an emotional connection that cannot be “made”. You just gel with certain people and with others, it is more difficult to connect to.

9.     Then there are the aspects of trust and time, as well.

Active listening is a great way to hear any message, especially when content is king and emotions are more like dukes and rooks in the situation.  It is great to practice this with activities and “stories”.  It is identified as a way of listening instead of a type of listening. This listening method focuses entirely on what the other person is saying. The listener then confirms the content of what was heard and the feelings the speaker projects about the message

Empathetic Listening is when content is less important than the attached emotions., but of course, you use active listening as a tool, here, as well. But with this situation, you need to take a step back and breathe first. Empathetic listening might be very useful when emotions are running high on both sides of the communication channel. It is also very useful to build trust when there is a low level of trust.  This is key for when the topic content is very important and meaningful.

·       ACTIVITY: (find someone and share a story) – practice active listening and then reverse roles and the other person shares… how accurate was the summary?

“Authenticity is the secret of genuine interpersonal connection. But how much weakness is too much? In this article, we explore the fascinating question of whether and when small weaknesses can make us more likeable or lead to rejection. Delve into the psychology of human connection and discover why perfection is not always the key to likeability.” – Christoph Schalk (ask me for the link –it’s  in German)

You should start with active listening to build trust, and if the person in front of you does not practice it, maybe you should look further.

Patricia Jehle          patricia@jehle-coaching.com