Are You Listening — Or Just Waiting to Talk?
One of the things we hear most often from our clients — people who are ready to call in a real, lasting partnership — is this:
"I just want someone who's a great communicator."
Or sometimes: "I want someone who really listens."
What's interesting is that they almost always say it as if those are two separate things. Two different qualities to look for in a person.
But they're not. They're the same thing. And the moment you understand why, it changes how you see every relationship in your life — including the one you're building with yourself.
Here's something that might surprise you: listening accounts for roughly 45% of our daily communication. More than talking. More than reading. More than writing.
Nearly half.
And yet when most people think about communication, they picture someone speaking. Words going out. A message being delivered.
But communication was never meant to be a monologue.
Think about Marco Polo — the game from childhood, voices across the water. One calls out. One answers. Back and forth. You can't play it alone. The moment one person stops responding, the whole thing collapses.
Real communication has that same rhythm. One speaks. One listens. Then it reverses. And in that genuine back and forth — something gets built. Understanding. Trust. Intimacy. The feeling of being truly known.
When one person is always talking? That's not communication. That's a broadcast.
And when someone can't quite wait for their turn — when what they want to say is burning such a hole in their pocket that they can't stay present long enough to actually hear you first — what gets lost isn't just your words.
What gets lost is you.
And here's what the receiving actually requires — something almost nobody talks about.
A pause.
Not a gap while you reload. A genuine pause. Long enough to take in what the other person actually said. Where they're coming from. What they might need in this moment. That pause is where real listening lives — in the space between hearing the words and choosing your response. Without it, you're not really responding to them. You're just reacting from you.
The Hijack
I had a family member who did this.
It didn't matter what story I started to tell, or how much of myself I'd put into sharing it. Before I could finish — sometimes before I'd barely begun — she would cut in with:
"You don't even know what I've been through with that."
And just like that, the conversation was hers.
My story, my experience, my moment of vulnerability — hijacked. Redirected. Absorbed into her narrative before it ever had a chance to land.
I don't think she did it to be unkind. I think something I said would spark something in her, and the need to share it felt so urgent that waiting seemed impossible. She wasn't listening to understand. She was listening for the trigger point that would give her an opening.
But the impact was the same, regardless of intention.
I felt invisible. Like my experience was just a launching pad for hers.
After enough of those moments, I crossed the street. Closed the door. When communication is reliably one-sided — when you consistently leave a conversation feeling more empty than when you started — you learn to protect your energy. That's not coldness. That's wisdom.
The Friend With the Advice
More recently, a different version of the same thing.
A dear friend and I stay connected through voice messages — back and forth, like our own version of Marco Polo. I love that format because the rhythm is built right in. You share. They receive. They respond. Nobody can interrupt. There's space.
Not long ago I shared something I'd been working through — a decision I'd come to that felt genuinely good. One of those quiet moments of self-awareness that I love to celebrate, in myself and in the people I care about. I wasn't asking for guidance. I was sharing a win. Something I'd not only recognized in myself, but had already begun to take care of.
Instead of meeting me there — instead of saying that's beautiful, look at you — she went straight back into the problem. The thing I'd just told her I'd already worked through. She wanted to dig into it further, add to it, and offer her own advice on something that was, for me, already done.
She even said she knew it might make me uncomfortable — but what kind of friend would she be if she didn't say something?
I sat with that for a moment.
And what I felt, underneath the surprise, was this: I wasn't heard.
Not because she said something unkind. But because there was no pause. No space where what I'd shared actually landed. She was already somewhere else — somewhere I hadn't asked either of us to go.
I'd hinted at this before. Gently. Generally. Mentioning "some friends" who do this without ever saying: I mean you, and it doesn't feel good.
That softening? That's its own thing to look at.
So this time I said it clearly: unless I'm asking for help with something I'm working through, I'm not open to unsolicited advice. And if she ever feels called to share something she's noticing in me, all she needs to do is ask first — "Is it okay if I share something? Can I offer you a reflection?"
It felt clean to say it. Kind and clear and true.
The Car Sale
One more — and this one's brief.
I recently sold my car. Older, high mileage, priced fairly, sold as-is, working perfectly. The buyer test-drove it, had every opportunity to have a mechanic look at it, and felt good about it.
Two weeks later, something apparently went wrong on a long drive.
Instead of reaching out with something like — hey, something happened, is there any way you could help? — he came at me with accusations and words I won't repeat here.
Here's what I know: if he'd come to me with even a thread of good faith, I would have listened. I would have wanted to help. But I was never given that chance. He wasn't looking for a conversation. He was looking to attack. And in doing so — with no pause, no space, no opening for anything real — he closed every door before either of us could walk through one.
Now — Look Around You
Three different stories. Three different people. One thread:
Someone who could not — or would not — truly listen.
But here's where I want to invite you to pause.
Not to look outward. To look around — and then gently, honestly, inward.
Think about the people closest to you right now. In your friendships, your family, your daily life.
Do you feel heard by them? Not just listened to on the surface — but genuinely received? Do you leave conversations feeling fuller, or quietly depleted? Are there people you've started to cross the street to avoid — and do you know why?
Those answers are information. They're showing you the communication environment you're currently living in, and what you're either settling for or standing up for.
And then — just as honestly:
Are you the one who sometimes can't wait? Who has hijacked a story, even lovingly? Who has offered advice when someone just needed to be heard? Who has gone around the edges of a hard truth instead of through it?
We've all been there. Every one of us.
The question isn't whether it's happened. The question is whether you're willing to look at it — because the awareness itself is where the shift begins.
The love you're calling in will need you to be someone who can hold space. Who can resist the urge to redirect, advise, or top. Who can pause long enough to ask — what does this person actually need right now? — before offering anything at all.
That's not passivity. That's one of the deepest forms of love there is.
And it goes both ways. You deserve that same presence from them. Fully. Generously. Without having to earn it.
A Quick Note for Those Who Speak Chakra
Here's something I find genuinely fascinating — the 5th chakra, Vishuddha, the throat chakra, is widely understood as the communication center. But most people think of it only as the speaking chakra.
What's less known is that the sense organ connected to the 5th chakra is hearing. The ears are part of it too.
Which means energetically, real communication — the full loop of speaking and truly receiving — lives in the same energy center. A 5th chakra that's only open in one direction isn't really open at all.
We have a beautiful 10-minute visually guided 5th chakra meditation that works with exactly this — clearing the channel in both directions, helping you find your most authentic voice and your deepest capacity to receive. Everyone who's experienced it has found it really powerful. Link is below.
Where to Begin
If any of this is landing — if you recognize yourself somewhere in these stories, or you're seeing your communication patterns a little more clearly — that awareness is the beginning.
The love you're calling in isn't just about finding the right person. It's about becoming someone who knows how to truly connect. Who can speak their truth and hold space for someone else's. Who understands that great communication and great listening aren't two different qualities.
They were always the same thing.
With love,
Kim (and Roger)
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Kim and Roger are Manifestationship® coaches who help adult singles manifest authentic, fulfilling relationships through conscious awareness and intentional inner transformation. Through their unique approach as both a man and woman team, they guide clients in becoming magnetic to the love that is possible for them.
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