The Art of Listening to Others
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 separated 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 irritated, 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 person 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 so you can see 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 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. It is my experience that the greatest challenges always come with the greatest of gifts embedded in them.
If this topic resonated with you and you’d like to explore it further, I discuss this topic more in my radio show Listening, The Key to Great Communication airing on Dreamvisions 7 Radio on Thursdays, April 25th at 5am and 5pm HERE. After the 25th, it will be available on demand, along with every other radio show I’ve ever done HERE. Please feel free to explore my archive and listen to any and all topics that call to you.
Offerings:
If you are looking to explore more topics like these, I invite you to join us for our next free live call. The feedback we’ve received has been tremendous, it warms my heart. The next live call will take place on May 7th, so save the date. The topic is: Healing the Unhealed. Here is the summary:
We are each a community of parts, parts we like and parts we don’t like. But the parts we try to hide from don’t go away. In fact, they influence us from underneath our everyday awareness. Join Mary in exploring how to heal your unlikable parts so you can become a whole and vibrantly alive community.
Listening takes conscious effort. On phone acoa meetings
The moderator says……thank you for sharing, you were heard. Because adult children of alcoholics were most likely not heard growing up.
It definitely does. I love that. Thank you for sharing that. Be light!
Beautiful. Thank you, Mary, for this important reminder. ❤️ I have always found listening to others (well . . . most others!) far easier than talking to others. Do you suppose that’s just the scared one who’s afraid to say something “wrong”?
You’re welcome. I think you’re on to something! I encourage you to explore that with your scared one. Thank you for sharing your reflection. Be light!