Your partner is telling you how mad he or she is at you for something and you counter with your list of complaints. My son is going on about the trouble he had at school today and I say, "You'll work it out," and get back to what I was doing.
You and I, we know how to listen, right? Then why can't we listen when it matters most? We need to figure out what to do about this before it's too late for everybody.
Let me take you on a journey back to that Listening Place we both know, out of our noisy heads and lives, to some clarity. We'll skip out quickly before anybody else tries to talk to us.
Imagine you are going to your favorite spot in the woods, a small cabin up the Columbia Gorge, or a camping spot. Old growth forest. Water babbling over rocks. An hour and some change from here.
It's 4:30 Friday. You rush around getting everything ready, handle those last minute phone calls, pay the bills while gritting your teeth against the high pitches of one neighbor's band saw and another's leaf blower. You get into the car then run back in the house for the dog food, then for the favorite pillow, then for the flashlight. Finally you get back in the car, and back out of the driveway, stopping suddenly to let the slow old lady cross the sidewalk, and finally blast down the street towards freedom.
At the intersection you have to wait for 29 cars to pass then you gun it for the freeway. You flip through the stations-bad news, bad music, some rant from some extremist-then settle on some oldies. You sing along (sort of) while the engine roars, the tires whir on the asphalt, trucks whiz passed, cars honk. In your head you're rehearsing the sales pitch for your next product or raise. You're pondering the status of your iron…
Thirty miles down the road, the scenery gets greener. The signs advertising gas, cheap stuff, saying "buy, buy, buy" diminish. At last you turn off the paved road. You turn off the radio. You hear the softer sound of the tires padding on the dirt road and the engine seems to purr more quietly. The last of the day's sun flashes on and off through the trees, mesmerizing the dog. You open the window, put your hand out and touch the air. |
Finally you're at the cabin you love, that place you dream of in office meetings or when the kids are yelling…you stop the car and turn off the engine. You slowly get out of the car, quietly shut the car door on it's beeping demands…
…Your hearts stop for a moment from the shock of silence. You open your ears wide to hear more, your heart opening with them. You can't summon enough width to take it all in, the hush of the trees, the murmur of the stream, the late afternoon chirp of the birds. You breathe in deeply, take it into your lungs, your soul. You stand still in soft awe.
Then the moment hits when the silence becomes strange, and you become restless. It's as if you might loose some grasp on what you know if you gave into it. You're anxious about relaxing. You have a choice-you can start yakking about some thing or another, get busy, even turn on the familiar racket of the radio, or allow yourself to become intimate with the subtle cull of nature, letting it in to you, giving over to it. Hearing what it has to say.
This is our lesson. In order to really listen to those we love, we have to inwardly take this same journey passed our noisy thoughts and resistance to stillness and openness. We must see the wonderful Beings right in front of us singing their own unique songs. We can breathe through the discomfort or seeming unimportance of what they are saying. We can release the past and the future like crows flying off into distant trees, becoming present to the dear person in front of us. We can relax into the needs of those we love. And just listen.
We can choose to listen, opening ourselves to the nature, the unknown, and the uncharted wilderness of those we love (or dislike), or we can stay in our familiar noise, closing them out with the racket of our internal engines and radios, and get busy doing that next thing on the list.
What would happen if we each quieted ourselves in order to listen to the other? How would we listen if we gave a loved one's words the same reverence we give the wind in the high fir trees?
By Marcia McReynolds of Planet. She teaches people how to really listen through workshops, The Listening Cards ™, and public speaking. |
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• The Listening Place
• Pledge of Listening:
Listening should be taught in schools
• Make Molehills Out of Mountains
• Problem Solving Process
• Listening for Sustainability
• Meditations on Listening
• Depression Sign of Missed Calling
• Path to Unconditional Happiness
• Guerilla Mediation Steps
• Listening to Emotional Blocks
in the Body |
