The Art of Listening

We live in a world where there is so much noise. I don’t necessarily mean city sounds or agricultural machinery, but the constant demands on our attention through technology.

For me, this results in fragmented internal chatter and a feeling of nervousness.

As we are bombarded more and more by external noise, we begin to lose the quiet connection to ourselves — the spaciousness needed to hear the inner wisdom and guidance we all have, but whose voice is being drowned out by the cacophony around us.

I also think that because we live in perpetual information overload, we have lost the ability to truly listen to each other. How many times do you witness a group of people — or even just two — both talking at the same time? I know that when I was growing up, this was completely normal: everyone on broadcast and nobody on receive.

What message does that send to one another when this becomes our natural way of being together? I know how it made me feel — that my thoughts, feelings, and opinions weren’t worth anyone actually listening to.

Because of this experience, and as the youngest child, I feel passionately that we need to relearn how to be together — to really be there for one another: open, attentive, and interested. Whether we agree with what is being said or hold a completely different point of view, all is valid.

So I invite you to ponder this in your day-to-day life. Perhaps notice how you listen to others. Perhaps notice when others aren’t fully listening to you. It’s not personal — in my opinion, it’s conditioning. As a child in a family stuck on broadcast, I thought if I talked louder, people would listen. It didn’t work. All that happened was the volume went up a few notches. There is a lot to consider and unlearn.

In the Mahu Circles I hold, it can at first feel unnatural to be silent while someone else is speaking, but the importance of this is paramount. It creates space and allows the person sharing to feel fully heard. This in itself can be deeply healing.

For those listening, there is also great wisdom to be found through hearing another’s experiences.

As Tara Brach once said, “To listen is to lean in gently, with a willingness to be changed by what you hear.”— from The Sacred Art of Listening by Tara Brach