seeing goodness -- deep listening

Tuesday I woke up with a sore throat and a disinclination to talk. By the end of the day I had a killer headache. So while there were plenty of people to talk to over the course of the day it felt uncomfortable to open my mouth and my energy was low.

Once I realized this I knew my practice for the day would be seeing goodness. Sometimes in the beginning of the conversation, sometimes like a light being turned on in the middle of one, I paused and pictured the other person as a whole complete being walking their path. All the answers within them that they would ever need.

When I remembered to see others like this I felt relaxed. I dropped an artificial sense of responsibility. I did not need to tell them something, I could just remember their goodness. The side effect was that I liked people much more, even in the casual encounters in the office.

seeing innocence -- deep listening

I spent most of the day Monday working alone and at first I was at a loss as to how to practice listening on my own.

By lunchtime I noticed my large volume of internal chatter so I started listening to myself. I was judgmental and self-critical about how the past weekend had gone. It was loud. Most of the chatter was a critique of my failures over the weekend.

Once I heard what was happening I was able to turn my attention to remembering. I remembered I am doing the best that I can at any given moment and that all humans act unskillfully at times. It changed nothing to verbally beat myself up for being human. I didn't have to add harm to myself on top of my unskillful behavior. I could extend caring towards myself as I listened.

With this in my awareness there was a sense of relief and release. The rest of the day was much quieter and peaceful. Thankfully.

wonder-deep listening

As I practiced my deep listening on Sunday the quality of wonder moved forward.

I was in several gatherings with very talkative people. Sometimes when that happens I find myself responding by talking a lot as well.

This time I listened and when possible responses came up I brought my attention back to the speaker until the end of the sentence or story. If my response or question was still something I wanted to say at that time I did so. I felt free to not chatter in return.

Something about waiting to speak about things I was really wondering about made the conversation more spacious. I felt more relaxed afterwards as well. It seemed to bypass the conversation headache that I sometimes get after that type of gathering.

It's a tiny practice but interesting stuff is popping up.

awareness-deep listening

Meetings and family doings today gave me plenty of opportunities to listen to others and the quality that came forward was Awareness.

As I listened to many people relate stories and information I gently returned my awareness to what they were saying when it wandered off.

Where did wander? Sometimes I found myself lost in thought about what I should say when my turn came. Sometimes I was arranging my remarks in my head, trying to remember details I wanted to communicate. Each time I noticed, I let my inner dialogue fade and focused on what the other person was saying.

After the meeting I felt I had really absorbed what people were saying. Also I noticed when my time came for speaking I spoke with ease and clarity. There was comfort.

Later when I spent time with my family it was difficult to keep my focus. It was dinner time and I was hungry. I found it challenging to keep my attention on the speaker when my mind was trying to plan out dinner. Apparently my empty tummy is pretty loud.

I'm looking forward to tomorrow and dinner was delicious.

Starting a week of deep listening

I have been pondering and playing with the practice of deep listening most of January. At times I find just the thought of deep listening scary, and my meanies voice their fears loudly. They are sure I will either do it wrong or lose myself [never to be found]

My inner meanies are certainly drama queens at times.

But it has also been, well kind of cool. I enjoy it a lot. Much like starting a metta practice, I'll keep my focus on loving or neutral conversations. I won't be playing with the most challenging discussions first.

So here goes, I am announcing my intention to have a deep listening play dates all week. Each day I hope to play with the practice and then focus on one of the seven aspects here in the blog.

For those who may want to play along here are the seven aspects:

Awareness

Presence

Silence

Wonder

Seeing Innocence

Seeing Goodness

Allowing

I love trees

I love being near trees, leaning on them, listening to them drip. Being surrounded. Even when caterpillars drop down, still I feel deep tree love.

They are great models for deep listening.

I love paintings and photos of trees as well. There is a treehouse inside each one.

xox

Baby #5 is born

Today I got the best news. A new baby in the family was born in the most joyful, ease-filled way at noon.

Babies! So sweet and tiny and amazingly loud. The only downside is that this one lives too far away for me to be able to rush over and hug it right now. That part leaves me feeling a bit sad. It won't be brand new by the time I see it. sigh

I also finished some knitting for a different baby and spent all day petting it, the sweater, as baby has not yet appeared. Babies!

These past 3 years have been wonderfully baby-filled. Here's hoping something wonderful drops into your life.