Listening

“Are you listening to me? Why don’t you listen to me? Would you just listen to me?” Ugh. How many times have I heard this? How many times have I said this? What is it with listening that seems to mess everything up? Maybe it’s because we usually don’t.

Now, I totally wish I could, and I’m sure you would wish it also, but I cannot make anyone else listen any better to what you are saying. I can encourage you to change your ways of listening so that maybe, just maybe, you start a trend that encourages others to listen with greater clarity as well.

Listening is hard because you have to focus and that means, in my case, I have to put down my phone, stop my writing, turn away from my cooking, and heaven forbid, come in from the garden. LOL! What? You want me to just stand here and let you talk while the whole time I am already coming to conclusions, forming my response to you, and barely waiting for you to take a breath before interjecting my view on what you are saying. That’s going to take some training.

But I know you better than that. You are smart, kind, and very compassionate. You are intelligent and wise. You got this.

Listening is the capacity to receive what is being said, not just hearing, but receiving. Not accepting, denying, judging, agreeing, but just receiving. Your receiving is a great gift that you, being intelligent and wise, can bestow on anyone.

In today’s stressful and fast world, we choose less and less to use our ability to listen. Our brain can only process so much in any given moment and when we reach that threshold we go into judgement and discounting because we cannot adequately file any more information. My wonderful husband, Terry, frequently says, “The mind can only absorb what the butt will allow.” He means you can only take in as much as your body can withstand which is true for sitting in a meeting, gathering around a dinner table, standing at coffee hour after church, or at yet another cocktail party.

Good listening to another person starts with good listening to your body.

Tara Brach says, “Listening is the hope for bridging divides and deepening connection. It is the grounds for activism and an understanding world.”

I am so grateful that after so many years of teaching yoga my students are telling me stories now about how they listened to their body and traced it to sickness or emotional processing. One gal felt a cold coming on earlier than symptoms really presented. She knew what was happening and was able to boost her supplements, get lots of rest, concentrate on better eating, and as a result was able to stave off the illness. Another student had a gnawing sensation in her belly that she discounted because it was too inconvenient to deal with. In a moment by herself, as she put it, she erupted in sobbing tears over the dissolution of a relationship years ago. The belly discomfort disappeared.

I was reading one of my daily newsletters from The Center for Action and Contemplation during the period of time I was creating this blog. The article was all about listening in the spiritual sense, but the author made a statement that I ‘heard’. He said, “Go outside right now, this very moment, and listen to the messages nature and God are sending you.” Well, of course, I did just that. It was about 6:45 on a Saturday morning just me and my cup of coffee slow walking through my yard and vegetable garden.

Were there any messages? Yes, there was a great message of hope. We had just endured a devastating storm containing a microburst the previous Saturday and there was still yard litter, huge branches scattered around, and the worst part, broken leaves from my fruit trees and very immature tomato and pepper plants. But there was also new growth. Tiny leaves were protruding right beside wilted branches. A few peaches were still on the tree and the apple tree, being a later bloomer had miraculously held onto her little budding apples, barely larger than a pin head, but there they were resilient as ever.

This little walk in my yard spoke to me of hope in the midst of loss, of growth in wounds, of life in death. The world was speaking and I was listening and by listening I was healing.