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cedar_groveFrom The Book of Awakening: Having the Life You Want by Being Present to the Life You Have.
What does it take to truly listen? The breakdown of everything that parades between our hearts. If I dare to hear you, I will feel you like the sun and grow in your direction and you in mine.
In such a sense, are not 'listening' and 'love' one and the same?
I will be the first to admit that I don't always listen as I should. It isn't that I don't want to. More often than not it's the opposite problem. I'm trying to listen too hard, and in doing that blocking myself, because all I end up doing is putting my own understanding on things, not feeling with empathy the truth of the others experience.
On the other hand, I rarely feel heard either; rarely feel 'listened to,' and that in itself can build a block around out heart as an empathic organ if we let it.
I hadn't used to... sure I'd bemoan the fact that 'no one listens to me' in those moments when I succumbed to my human frailties - the need for that kind of love and security dwells in me as in anyone else - but I used to find it much easier to just listen; to give that of myself.
I supposes it's gone along with all of the other things that I lost in losing myself all that time ago - the ability to listen unfettered - to give without expectation of receipt.
On Thursday I was listening. I was very happy to receive an Email from Mir in which she enthused about a decision she'd made and a piece of writing she had started. My heart swelled with joy for her, and the joy of discovering the journey she had started to make again. Her happiness drew me toward her like the sun that helped to warm me, and make us stronger in our togetherness. It was a seed of hope that fell into the fertile soil of my garden, waiting to germinate and grow in the warmth we share.
Then a cloud covered my sun... and I honestly am so cross with myself, so ashamed and angry that I allowed that to happen. My cloud was a selfish thought that popped up in response to my being happy and supportive.
It makes me question again though what made me become so hurt and jaded that I stopped doing all of these things that came naturally to me in the first place.
Perhaps first and foremost I need to listen to myself
The ear is only a petal
that grows from the heart.
When we hear each other,
it all becomes a garden.
What does it take to truly listen? The breakdown of everything that parades between our hearts. If I dare to hear you, I will feel you like the sun and grow in your direction and you in mine.
In such a sense, are not 'listening' and 'love' one and the same?
I will be the first to admit that I don't always listen as I should. It isn't that I don't want to. More often than not it's the opposite problem. I'm trying to listen too hard, and in doing that blocking myself, because all I end up doing is putting my own understanding on things, not feeling with empathy the truth of the others experience.
On the other hand, I rarely feel heard either; rarely feel 'listened to,' and that in itself can build a block around out heart as an empathic organ if we let it.
I hadn't used to... sure I'd bemoan the fact that 'no one listens to me' in those moments when I succumbed to my human frailties - the need for that kind of love and security dwells in me as in anyone else - but I used to find it much easier to just listen; to give that of myself.
I supposes it's gone along with all of the other things that I lost in losing myself all that time ago - the ability to listen unfettered - to give without expectation of receipt.
On Thursday I was listening. I was very happy to receive an Email from Mir in which she enthused about a decision she'd made and a piece of writing she had started. My heart swelled with joy for her, and the joy of discovering the journey she had started to make again. Her happiness drew me toward her like the sun that helped to warm me, and make us stronger in our togetherness. It was a seed of hope that fell into the fertile soil of my garden, waiting to germinate and grow in the warmth we share.
Then a cloud covered my sun... and I honestly am so cross with myself, so ashamed and angry that I allowed that to happen. My cloud was a selfish thought that popped up in response to my being happy and supportive.
It makes me question again though what made me become so hurt and jaded that I stopped doing all of these things that came naturally to me in the first place.
Perhaps first and foremost I need to listen to myself
