1. Listen!
The first tip seems simple, but it is often times over looked: Listen! And we aren’t talking about the type of listening you do during the thirteenth speaker at your last Hail and Farewell. We are talking about active listening.
What is active listening? Active listening is a way of listening and responding to another person that improves mutual understanding.
It requires that the listener fully concentrates, understands, responds and then remembers what is being said. In addition to increasing recall for the listener, active listening helps the speaker feel validated. People love being heard but unfortunately it seems like in today’s society the only way we know we have been heard is through the number of likes on our most recent Facebook post.
Here are the six steps to being an active listener:
- Decompress
Be sure to take the time to decompress and clear your mind of the eighteen things left on your “to do” list and reduce the distracting environment factors
- Bring wine
Okay, this one isn’t totally necessary but it never hurts, right? In all seriousness, sharing a bottle of wine or splitting an ice cream sundae with a friend while having a difficult conversation isn’t always the best option for your waistline but it does create a positive memory and shares experience. Sometimes, it is the right stimulus to change the tone of the situation.
- Show you are interested
Use non-verbal cues and gestures to convey your attention. By making eye contact, maintaining a receptive posture and nodding occasionally, the other party knows that you are tuned into the conversation.
- Ensure that you are on the same page
Our personal filters, assumptions, judgments and beliefs can distort what we hear. Be sure to reflect what is being said and ask questions. A great reflection starting points is: “What I’m hearing is…”
- Avoid jumping to judgments
During the conversation, avoid judging, analyzing, or preparing a response. This frees you to listen with your total attention and allows the speaker time to go deep into their thoughts without feeling rushed.
- Get involved
Active listening is a model for respect and understanding; you are gaining information and perspective. Even if you don’t agree with the speaker, confirm your interest by asking thoughtful questions and acknowledging what they said.
2. Help!
As much as we hate to admit it, the military lifestyle often times demands that we rely on our “village” for help. Without fail, the car will break down as soon as your spouse deploys or your oldest child will get sick the day you have a big meeting at work and your spouse is TDY. Great military friends are those people who are happy to be of service to each other; most of the time because they have been through a similar situation and wish that someone would have been there to offer a helping hand.
The first key to offering help to a fellow military spouses friend is not waiting until you are asked to offer assistance. In fact, if you wait until you are asked you may never get the opportunity because most spouses would rather do a cross-country DITY while their spouse is deployed than ask for help!
The second key to offering help is not waiting until the house is burning down to offer help. If one of your friends doesn’t quite seem to be their normal self or has expressed feelings about having a tough time lately, ask them out to lunch. Sometimes the best thing you can do is offer them adult companionship, conversation and support!
3. Create Memories!
Good military friends are those that you go out for a night on the town with. Great military friends are those that you still make an effort to stay in touch with even after multiple PCS’s.
In order to strengthen new friendships and keep old friendships alive, you need to be intentional about creating new memories together.
Although it is fun to reminisce about old times over a campfire and glass of wine, there are only so many times you can retell the infamous “remember when” stories before they start losing their sparkle. Making new memories is easiest when you can embark on new adventures together.
Even if this means saving up and meeting half-way in between your current location, getting a babysitter for the whole day or doing a zoo day with all the kids, your time invested in seeking common adventures is well worth it. Because military life doesn’t always lend itself to seeing each other face to face, great military friends should be sure to be consistent about checking in with each other and sharing what’s new in between the in person encounters.
Growing together by created shared memories, helping each other out whenever possible and truly listening are the three crucial steps to becoming a the type of military spouse friend that is worth ditching the Ben and Jerry’s and the newest episode of The Bachelor!
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