Learning to Listen

So, thirty years ago I used to present an eight hour long workshop on LISTENING. Think how much I’ve learned, myself, about listening in the last thirty years. Imagine how long the workshop will be now. Get a pot of coffee and settle back.

Only kidding. The workshop has been pared down to two words: BE QUIET. The first thing a good listener does is to stop talking. That is only a tenth of what makes someone a good listener, though. The problem is we may shut our mouth, but we activate our brain. If we want to be good listeners, we need to quiet the monkey chatter in our heads.

So a friend says, “I just read the best book.” Immediately we start with the questions: How much did it cost? Where did you get it? Do you think I’ll like it? Is it better than Shades of Grey? We derail our friend. Whatever was going to be said is forgotten as our friend starts to answer the barrage of questions.

A relative says, “Hey, I need your opinion on something,” and immediately we start thinking about what it could be: Is it a trap? What if it makes me look bad? What if the whole family finds out that secretly I’m agnostic? How am I going to get out of this? We have decided before we ever heard what was being asked that it was a set up, and we could only suffer if we participated.

A colleague asks if we could go to a meeting in his place, cover her shift, help with a project. Our first thought is ,”Why?” Our second thought is, “Why me?” Our third thought is probably, “What’s in it for me?” We have turned the listening inward and are only thinking about ourselves.

Actually, being quiet and not talking is easy. Turning off the chatter in our brains requires exquisite self-discipline. We have to stop judging, assuming, presuming, comparing, preparing, and believing that anything anyone could want from us is negative, nasty and not in our best interests. Ironically, most things people want from us have nothing to do with us. Just like most things people say about us have nothing to do with us. When we humans talk, we are almost always talking about ourselves. here are a few examples:

“You are too needy,” means: I can’t be bothered to meet your needs. (I’m too selfish and self-absorbed.)

“You’re wrong,” means: I do not have the ability to see more than one perspective. (I’m really limited.)

“You’re crazy,” means: I cannot find the compassion in myself to see alternative ways of thinking. (I am rigid and inflexible.)

The statistic is that 94% of everything any person says to you is about them, not you. Listening, really, truly, listening, requires a shut off valve which stops the rampant narcissism and opens up a pathway of possibility. We have to suspend our own agenda for a few minutes and simply listen. We have to let the words of others fall on the soft sand, not the jagged rocks. We need to absorb and taste others’ words, as we would a new food, not reject them out of hand.

Listening is about loving. We need to stop judging and open our hearts to the place of welcome. Welcome other opinions, other perceptions, other pieces of the puzzle. It is as if each of us looks at a large Bruegel painting — they were massive — about 20 feet long and ten feet high. Each of us has a one inch view. Yet we repeatedly and defiantly say everyone else’s view is WRONG. BAD.

We each see a part of the whole. If we put our perceptions together, imagine what a beautiful picture we could see. Imagine what a loving, compassionate world we could create. Imagine the joy, the safety, the warmth, the fun we could have if we only worked together. It all starts with learning to listen.

“When a man makes up a story for his child, he becomes a father and a child together, listening.” –Rumi

Blessings and peace, dear friends. Susan