Wednesday, February 9, 2011
LISTENING
A friend recently said that he had been talking for 30 years and thought it was time he started listening. I was impressed by that resolve.
Today I ran onto a TED video of Evelyn Glennie, a deaf percussionist and composer, who challenged me to think outside the box. She also opened my mind to the greater potential of ourselves and others if we learn to listen with our whole being. She uses music/percussion to express deep truths.
I'm processing so much lately and want to really listen to hear truth about myself and life in general but specifically related to what I am experiencing these days. I desire to listen more profoundly to hear from God as he speaks through his word and through others. I want to listen so that I not only understand him, but myself and others and have a deeper compassion that comes from truly listening.
A question a dear counselor once repeatedly asked me during weeks of therapy was: What is reality? He would never answer the question for me. But always posed the question so from time to time 30 years later I continue to ask myself the same question which I think is answered when we seek to listen.
I especially want to listen and learn to walk through the reality of aging, now that my body is weakening, with grace and peace not succumbing to despair but staying present in love and life.
Probably most important,t I want to learn to listen to others to hear and understand rather than to always feel like I need to do something to fix "IT". So if you talk to me and I start to offer advice, please stop me and remind me to just simply listen.
Listen
by Author Unknown
by Author Unknown
When I ask you to listen to me
and you start giving advice,
you have not done what I asked.
When I ask you to listen to me
and you begin to tell me why I shouldn't feel that way,
you are trampling on my feelings.
When I ask you to listen to me
and you feel you have to do something to solve my problem,
you have failed me, strange as that may seem.
Listen! All I asked was that you listen.
Not to talk or do-just hear me.
Advice is cheap. Ten cents will get you both Dear Abby and
Bill Graham in the same newspaper.
And I can do for myself. I'm not helpless.
Maybe discouraged and faltering, but not helpless.
When you do something for me that I can and need to do for myself,
you contribute to my fear and weakness.
But, when you accept as a single fact that I do feel what I feel,
no matter how irrational, then I can quit trying to convince
you and get to the business of understanding what's
behind this irrational feeling.
And when that's clear, the answers are obvious
and I don't need advice.
Irrational feelings make sense when we understand
what's behind them.
So, please listen and just hear me. And if you want to talk,
wait a minute for your turn;
and I'll listen to you.
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