Listening and Remembering

In chapter 7, the book discusses the stages of effective listening. The six stages of effective listening are represented by the HURIER acronym: hearing, understanding, remembering, interpreting, evaluating, and responding.

I wanted to focus on remembering for two reasons. I have found that personally, remembering has predominantly affected my communication with others either because I have a hard time remembering some details or because the other person I am conversing with remembers things differently than I do. The other reason is because I believe that my grandma is in the early stages of Alzheimer's and it has been interesting/sad to see how her memory has affected our interactions.

My friends see me as a "good listener." However, one thing that they like to joke about, and I do as well is my memory. Most of the time I'll say, "I'm sorry! my memory is really bad!" As the book states, "remembering what we hear can help us to communicate with others more effectively." My memory has definitely caused me to have awkward encounters when I have forgotten a person's name, major, or something that is their "favorite." It has also caused my friends to be disappointed when they realize that I forgot something that they had told me. Most of the time when they remind me what they said I will remember the instance of them telling me, but before they remind me I may ask them the same question because I forgot they had already told me. Even worse, sometimes I may forget that I told them I would do something.

Sometimes, the interesting outcome of a conversation is when another person and I both remember a certain detail differently. This may cause us to discuss for awhile of who is right or wrong. Sometimes it can lead to funny, light-hearted conversations, but at other times if the details are more serious it can cause more stress and turn into an argument. Most of the time however, since I know I tend to forget things easily I usually agree that the other person is right. On the other hand, I sometimes have other people to back up my information. It was funny because the other day my roommates, another friend, and I had gone to grab something to eat. While we were waiting for the food, my friend and I started talking about our pool's apartment since it had recently opened but we haven't had the time to go yet. I started talking about all of us being at the pool together last summer and my friend interjected and said, "no I've never been to the pool with all of you. Patty (one of my roommates) wasn't there when I went." I insisted that I remembered that all four us had gone, but at the same time I thought that maybe I was remembering it wrong. At first, I was going to just agree that he was right but then I decided to ask Patty since she was standing there if she remembered going with us. Both Patty and my other roommate agreed that we had all gone together and my friend was very surprised to have been wrong, since normally he likes to think that he has a good memory. In this case, it was something light-hearted that we all laughed about instead of something serious or hurtful.

Though I feel like my memory is a little worse than other people that I know, the book also points out that in general, "people can recall only 25% of what they hear -- and of that portion, they remember only about 20% of it accurately." Though I know I and other people try to listen well, it is difficult to remember everything perfectly and I think remembering is a major step that typically causes a breakdown in communication. Sometimes when I want to make sure that I remember things that are important, I try to write it down so that I will be reminded and less likely to forget.

As I also mentioned in my previous post about not having enough time for myself and being overloaded with work or other concerns, my mind will be preoccupied with other things which can make it harder to remember details when talking with people. So again, its important to find a balance and to make sure to relax so that we aren't too preoccupied with other things.

--In general, I think distractions are often the reason why people have a hard time remembering information and details.

In respect to my grandma developing Alzheimer's, it has definitely made communicating with her more difficult in the past few years. Her developing Alzheimer's isn't a problem with her ability to listen, but it is something that I wanted to discuss in terms of how it affects communication. On her side of the communication, I don't think it affects her as much because she does not realize that she is repeating herself. However, it makes it difficult sometimes for her family to communicate with her because she will often forget important things that we tell her, which sometimes may impact her health or well being. Her memory can also make it difficult sometimes to carry on a conversation with her because she will repeat the same stories several times over which inhibits the flow of the conversation, and can make one wonder if she will remember what is being said to her. Thankfully, she is in the early stages and it hasn't become severe yet, but it has gotten worse over the past few years. Alzheimer's can be a scary and sad thing for a family, especially when it gets to the point that the person doesn't remember family members. I talked about her some in my "family" post and I love her very much. And as a family, we will always be there for her and support her, even if our ability to communicate with her decreases.