The Art of Listening

One of the most powerful gifts that you can give to anyone, especially during this very unsettling time, is to simply listen to them – to relate to them with openness and honoring their truth. This helps to dissolve the separateness that keeps each and every one of us caught in the illusion of being separate from life, especially being separate from others.

This kind of listening isn’t about helping, it is simply being with another human being as you go beyond ‘I and other’ and instead open into the common ground of being, which we all share. This is about listening with a heart that can include whatever the other person is experiencing whether it’s joy or pain, anger or sadness. Even if they are judging you, you can, over time, learn how to listen to them, to have empathy for their pain.

If they are hurting, you don’t need to go into that hurt with them. You can just bear witness to it. If they are feeling sad, it’s just sadness. If they are feeling lonely, it’s just loneliness. If they are feeling irritation, it’s just irritation. This kind of listening doesn’t try to change anything or make anything happen. It is simply the willingness to be with the other exactly as they are, not trying to make them different than what they are! It’s just pure listening. And that kind of listening brings forth the connection we all deeply long for.

This is hard for us because we are addicted to fixing other people. But do you like to be fixed? Most of us don’t. If we are honest with ourselves, we just want to be heard. This is also hard because we just want the other person to feel better because we are uncomfortable with what is brought up inside of us when somebody is struggling. But when you are in an uncomfortable situation, life is holding up a mirror that is showing you what needs to be listened to inside of you.

When you’re ready, begin to practice listening to another person whether it’s your child, somebody sitting across the aisle on the bus, a voice on the other end of the phone. They carry the same pain you do. Go beyond your mind’s illusion that you are separate from this person.  Allow your heart to connect with them in the common ground of simply being. Listen with a heart that is willing to meet whatever this human being is expressing, connecting with them in the direct experience of life, exactly as it is right now.

Most people start this with a person they don’t have a charge with like a grocery store clerk, your best friend when everything is going great, or a new acquaintance in your book group, or your favorite librarian. But as you increase the muscle of your listening, you will be able to listen to the people that challenge you. Maybe not the big challenges right away, but the ordinary everyday challenges.

The more you strengthen the muscle of your listening, meeting others with the healing balm of your heart, the more you become a part of the healing that is coming out of this challenging time. I know it can seem like there is nothing good about Covid-19, but it is my experience that the greatest challenges always come with the greatest of gifts embedded in them.

Maybe just maybe the wild and crazy year of 2020 (and now 2021) showed up in order to help us open our hearts more to ourselves, to our fellow human beings and to the earth as a whole.

The art of listening to others comes from the ability to listen to yourself. This is one of the core messages in my new book, Falling in Love with You.  We have received so much positive response that we are rerunning our holiday special for Valentine’s Day. It is so important to love yourself first with your whole being, so you can embrace others with the warmth of your heart.

This is a wonderful little book to share with everyone you love and care about. From now until Valentines Day: buy three Falling in Love with You paperbacks from my website and get a fourth one for free. It will automatically be included in your package.

Falling in Love with You: Nuggets of wisdom for a heartfelt life is available on our website and Amazon paperback & eBook.