The Make or Break for Any Relationship

One sentence goes sideways, emotions spike, and suddenly you’re arguing. Pop quiz: what do you do?

We’ve all been there, right?

At work, when you’re sharing an idea in a meeting and someone talks over you—or worse, repeats what you said as if it were theirs.

In an argument with your partner when you say how you feel and they jump in to defend themselves before you’ve even finished the sentence.

Trying to explain your needs to a parent, and getting met with advice, dismissal, or a story about when they went through something "worse."

This is the exact moment where relationships are made or broken—not by who's right, but by what happens next.

pinterest, uncredited

And if you handle that next moment well, if you practice this one tool, then - chances are you’re going to create connection. And if you don’t - good luck, buddy. Doesn’t matter if you’re single or married-for-forever, building something at a kitchen table with friends or navigating hierarchy inside a corporation. We all navigate relationships—romantic, professional, familial, chosen. And in every one of those dynamics, this tool is either deepening or quietly eroding the health of them.

It’s called ‘Active Listening.’

Either this is new to you and you’re asking “wait… so just like… listen harder?” or you’ve heard this phrase tossed around as often as “hold space” and its blending into the spiritual self-help wallpaper.

Either way, let me be clear:

It. Is. So. Much. Harder. Than. It. Sounds.
But the pay off is exponential.

Hear me out (see what I did there?).

“Listening” can be passive. It often means simply hearing the words someone is saying. You might be quiet, you might even be paying attention—but there’s no guarantee you’re present.

Active Listening, on the other hand, is intentional.

It’s not about waiting for your turn to speak.
It’s not about formulating the perfect response.
It’s about creating space for the other person’s truth to exist—without interruption, defense, or redirection.

And OH LORD… you KNOW when you’re NOT getting it.
Much easier to spot.

When you’re sharing something that matters—and the other person cuts in with advice. When you’re trying to explain how you feel—and they correct your experience. When you can feel them waiting for you to finish just so they can talk. When the space doesn’t feel safe enough to say the deeper thing.

It doesn’t always look dramatic. Sometimes it’s subtle. But no matter what, you leave the conversation feeling a little more alone. A little more frustrated. A little less seen. (Maybe a lot.)

We crave it—so deeply.
That moment when someone really hears us. When their eyes soften and they stop trying to fix, or advise, or relate it back to themselves. When they just stay with us. When we don’t have to work to be understood—we simply are.

That longing is sacred. That longing points to something holy at the center of what it means to be human: the need to be received. Fully. Gently. Without judgment. And also—the quiet, sacred responsibility to receive others in that same way.

There’s a softening that happens in the body, a kind of nervous system exhale, when we’re truly listened to. It’s like something primal in us settles. The guard dog can finally rest. We feel safe. We feel real. We feel met.

So when we don’t receive it—when we’re spilling our truth and it gets misinterpreted, minimized, redirected—it doesn’t just sting. It can feel quietly devastating.

And the hardest part?
Sometimes we’re the ones doing that.
Yikes. It’s a lot more difficult to spot that one.

When the pressure’s on—when we’re in conflict, when we feel misunderstood, when our nervous system is on fire—we might double down. Or interrupt. Or defend.
Or repeat ourselves, hoping to finally be heard. But the conversation keeps unraveling, and something tender starts to slip away.

I am consistently reminded that this kind of listening—isn’t passive at all. (see: first word of phrase) It’s active in the truest sense: it engages your entire self. Your body. Your breath. Your awareness. Your restraint. Your capacity to stay. And sometimes it engages your deepest discomfort.

I’ve found this most painfully true in moments of conflict. It’s easy to nod and make soft eye contact when someone’s telling you about a hard day. But when someone’s upset with you—when your ego is activated, when you’re feeling misunderstood or mischaracterized—listening feels almost impossible.

And that’s where the real work begins.

So what is active listening, really? How do we understand it—through the brain, the body, the soul? And most importantly, how do we practice it, especially when it's hardest?

Let’s dive in.

Listening Is More Than Hearing

Let’s begin simply: active listening is the practice of truly receiving another person. Not just hearing their words, but meeting their world.

That might sound poetic, but it’s radical when you really do it.

To actively listen means to suspend your own perspective long enough to honor someone else’s. It’s about coming to a conversation not with the hunger to be understood, but with the humility to understand. It’s about unclenching the fist of your own certainty.

And that is no small thing.

In a world addicted to quick takes, certainty, and identity performance, active listening invites you to do something different: to soften, to be curious, to not know.

It asks:
Can you be changed by what you hear?
Can you let your ego rest long enough to let someone else take up space in your awareness?

This kind of listening is not about control. It’s about reverence. And it’s a relief, too—when you really step into it. You realize you don’t have to solve everything. You don’t have to defend yourself or teach anyone a lesson. You can just... be with someone. As they are. You get to… relax, actually.

The Neuroscience of Listening

From a brain perspective, active listening draws on our most evolved capacities—empathy, emotional regulation, and social intuition.

But here’s the kicker: when we’re in conflict, these capacities shut down.

When our nervous system is activated—when we're angry, defensive, hurt, or afraid—the amygdala takes over. The body enters fight-or-flight. And suddenly, listening becomes nearly impossible. The ego flares up: I need to be right. I need to win. I need to be heard.

This is why active listening isn’t just a communication tool—it’s a regulation practice. You can’t actively listen if you’re dysregulated.

You can’t receive someone else when your own inner child is screaming. Learning to listen means learning to self-soothe.

To notice when you’re tightening and make the choice to soften. To notice when you’re spinning into defense and come back to ground.

Sometimes the most powerful thing you can do in a tense moment is not speak—but breathe.

The Soul of Listening

Here’s where the soul comes in:

To truly listen, especially in moments of rupture, we must go deeper than the mind. We must access the part of us that is not trying to control the outcome. The part of us that is okay not being right. The part of us that can sit in discomfort without needing to escape or explain it away.

John O’Donohue reminds us that the soul doesn’t want to be advised or fixed—it wants to be witnessed. That’s true of the people we love. And it’s true of us, too.

To listen with the soul is to become a sanctuary. Not a judge, not a rescuer. A quiet space of presence.

In conflict, this often means choosing not to speak. Not because we’re suppressing, but because we’re tending. Tending to the seven-year-old inside who feels dismissed, rejected, or not good enough. Tending to our unmet needs so we don’t place them in someone else’s lap.

In other words, it’s less about being silent and more about becoming still.

Still enough to hear.
Still enough to choose love over ego.
Still enough to remember the relationship matters more than the need to win.

Some Guiding Questions

In the beginning, these questions are like training wheels—they help us stay upright when everything feels wobbly. But with practice, something shifts. We start to move with more steadiness, more trust in ourselves. One day, we look up—and we’re riding on two wheels, navigating hard moments with more grace than you realized you had.

• Am I closer to my soul or my ego right now?

• Can I make enough space in myself to actually receive this person?

• What parts of me are reacting? What do they need?

• Can I soothe those parts enough to stay open?

• What does Love require of me right now?

These are not easy questions. But they are the ones that create real connection.

Practical Ways to Practice Active Listening

It’s one thing to understand active listening in theory—it’s another to actually do it when you’re tired, triggered, or tangled up in your own emotions. These aren’t magic tricks, but they are game changing ways to stay connected when it would be easier to shut down.

Here are some grounded, tangible ways to bring active listening into your life: