I’m back again to talk about listening. Why? Because I see around me people who so need a good listening, especially during these times and I don’t think we fully appreciate what listening contributes to them. Again I suggest that listening is a most precious gift, the value of which I think few of us see.
When I listen to someone, I’m asking myself: What does this person cry out to communicate? What is it they’re dying to have me understand? What is their message?
True listening has no truck or trade with judgement. It’s completely concerned with understanding. Listening is like having a second self. That’s really what we’re missing, is it not? Our twin flame? Our other half? The original other that makes us One?
True listening is like having that second half, a person who loves us unconditionally, who will put a bandage on our knee, who will hear whatever we need to say, who will stick around to get through the initial brushclearing and wait to see what shows up in the space.\
I view each sentence I hear as a potential chapter heading. There’s so little real listening that occurs in our society that people speak in chapter headings. Very little of what they wish to have communicated actually ever gets communicated.
If the speaker wants to unravel any particular sentence, I know there’s value in me listening to it. There are no detours. Every line explored takes us closer to the heart of the matter, whether I can see how that is or not.
Watch a person whom you’ve listened to for more than an hour. They become relaxed. They begin to unwind. To heck with meditation. Let’s just listen to each other. Listening cannot be done except with an empty mind. The discipline of listening is itself a form of meditation, I find.
To listen to another, I have to put my ego aside. Every time that feeling of being clever arises that would have me make a smart response and show what a good boy am I, I put it aside. That’s a big part of the discipline of listening.
Hearing another person’s pain, allowing their anger, getting to the root of their upset releases more than most medications and many therapies. It’s releasing to speak the truth. But its doubly releasing to be heard (listening) and triply releasing to be known to have been heard (feedback, mirroring).
I dearly wanted to carve out a career for myself teaching listening. Why I didn’t I don’t know. I wanted to create listening posts all around my country. But I guess I wanted to write more. My happiest moment teaching was the one class I did on listening at a company I worked for. Maybe when I can bilocate, the second me will devote itself to the propagation of listening.
Not being heard is very painful. Not being listened to, not being paid attention to, being ignored, being told what one thinks or how one is.
In my soul contract, I was given the good fortune of being born the runt of the litter. I was totally ignored in everything. How else to create a writer and a listener? What good fortune it was for me because I can appreciate the pain of people who are not listened to and not heard.
I never tire of talking about listening because I know its value. Solomon said of the Divine Mother that knowledge of Her was more precious than rubies. (1) Knowledge of listening is like that as well. Its value is inestimable.
Now, as we draw together in a unified field that will ascend as One, listening is going to play a larger and larger role. So don’t be surprised if I return to the topic again and again. Heavens, do start experimenting with listening. You who may wonder what your mission is, until you know for sure, what better service can there be than listening?
Footnotes
(1) “She is more precious than rubies: and all things thou canst desire are not to be compared with her.” Proverbs 3:13-5.