How to bring your listening heart

 

Last week I was in the line at Starbucks and I heard two men debating the merits of different motorcycles, to be precise, BMW vs. Harley.

I piped in with, with a smile- “I prefer BMW.”

One man agreed with me and the other said-“You’re just saying it because it is BMW.” (Do you have the sense that I might have hit a nerve?)

I replied-“No-BMW’s are quieter.”

He replied that buses are noisier than a Harley and I replied that he was probably right and I didn’t particularly like the noise of the buses either.

As I left Starbucks he was sitting next to his Harley. I said to him “Nice bike!” and he replied “Thanks!”

Close to the beginning of this exchange I realized, that he felt judged by my choice and as a result he became defensive. He had heard but he didn’t listen or maybe he did.

I was expressing my preference. I had no judgment about his-other than if he happened to be driving by me-so there you go I had a judgment!

Listening comes from a different place. It comes from your being that is attentive to what is said and unsaid. Listening can be healing. It always shows us, if we pay attention, to what is not being said. It requires a stillness and an openness that isn’t always easy to access when a topic hits a hot button.

The hot buttons are the ones that spiral us into judgment against another or against ourselves. We make them wrong or ourselves wrong without noticing what is really being “said”.

On those occasions where the topic is one that contains no buttons to be pushed-I can listen. When I do it changes the whole energy of a situation. I respond differently. I become more of who I am and that offers the other person an opportunity to become more of who they are-underneath all the judgment they hold about themselves or others.

In the end I listened to him and allowed him the joy of his “nice bike.”

“Listening comes from your being and a place of stillness that allows you to hear what isn’t being said. Then you get to choose your response.

It can be very healing, as you know yourself, when you are on the receiving end of being heard. Suddenly you find yourself relaxing into the moment, knowing that you aren’t being judged or being made wrong.

There is the catch for many of you. You are so used to making yourself wrong, as if by not being wrong, everything would be fixed in the whole of your world. It isn’t so. There will always be those that will never understand who you be and they will be many and there will be those that do and they will be few.

The trick to life on planet earth is to let that not matter. The trick is just be you without judgment of right or wrong. Stop second guessing yourself so much and be light of heart. When you are light of heart, your being listens in a clearer way. It hears what needs to be heard and then you get to choose what to do with it.

Sometimes it is nothing. Sometimes there is no response required, no words to be said and nothing to be done. Sometimes there is. And when there is, if you have been listening, you will know exactly what to be and do.

We want you to know, dear ones, that your life is a journey of experiences and not all them will please you but if you stop judging yourself so harshly you will find that even though they aren’t always so pleasing, they are always perfectly imperfectly, right for you in that moment. Maybe you will take a few steps back and rethink your position and maybe you will decide to let go and fly.

Neither is good or bad, right or wrong. It just is. You can never get the journey wrong and you can always make it more joyful by stepping out of judgment, be it against yourself or another.

And that dear ones is always a joyful choice that will always serve everyone involved.”

Go For The Joy

Linda and The Group