Listening is the Work of the Heart

If our hearts aren't being scraped against something, always,
then why are we here?
We should hurt. And we should learn how to carry hurt. And we should learn how to hurt more inside of us, you know?
Because that allows us to be here and present and with others,
who are also hurting.

The things that scrape against our hearts...are the things that remind us that we're still here, and we're present for what the human experience is. 

My task isn't to arrive at the end of all this with my heart unsullied.
An unsullied heart means that I didn't use it. 

- Anis Mosjani, Poet Laureate of Oregon
From Travelling Unalone

 

A heart that is scraped.....it doesn't sound very pleasant, does it? Pretty darn uncomfortable really. But have you noticed that's how it feels sometimes, when we really allow our hearts to meet with our own suffering and the suffering of others?

My own experience was that for years I experienced this painfulness in my heart, and tried every which way to escape it, numb it, avoid it and deny it. Over many years, it slowly dawned on me that not only was this raw painful feeling not going away, it was actually something incredibly precious, to be welcomed and revered. As meditation master Chogyam Trungpa commented “We begin to realise that our whole being is made out of one complete sore spot altogether……that vulnerability is compassion, our embryonic compassion.”  (You can read more about this in the blog post from a few years ago Learning to Love the Sore Spot. )

There is a wise and even beautiful way to live with the scraping of our hearts. 

At the moment as I prepare for the Embodied Listening weekend workshop, I am pondering listening a great deal. Anis's words somehow resonated, as they speak to the power of heartful presence and listening -  how we make room for the experience of others, how others make room for us, and how transformative this can be. 

There are so many ways to consider Embodied Listening. Here are just a few : 

Listening is a conscious process of receiving the world in my experience. 

Listening is to make room for the experience of another, without it threatening our own. To deeply listen is to hold more than one truth, or one version of reality, simultaneously.

Listening is the work of the heart, and the whole body/mind/community that we are.  

Listening creates space for ourselves and others to change, to unfold, to heal, and transform. 


How many of us feel that we are deeply listened to, heard, and felt? 

How fully are we able to deeply listen to others? 

Could we develop a maturity of being where we might not be so afraid of being scraped, but could actually welcome it as a gift, a sign of life, an affirmation of our humanity, something to take care of? 

Could we be part of developing communities, societies and cultures where there is time and space for people to truly listen to one another?
Where we have safe places for our hearts, our hurts and our humanness, which in turn liberates our joy, creativity and freedom? 

And what might become possible in world like that? 

I want to find out!


Listening has the power to transform people and situations

Sometimes it is us who needs to be listened to, to have our hearts, our pain, our experience received fully and completely by another. 

When we are listened to and received, something in us relaxes and lets go. We don't need to fight so hard, shout so loud, harden our hearts or block our ears to the needs of others. Life can move through us, and flow on. Things have a way of finding their own place.

Sometimes it is us who has that capacity to receive another's experience, fully and completely, so that they may re-make their own journey to wholeness. 

When we are able to listen, to bear witness, to be open, without exaggeration and without denial, without getting sucked in or running away, an amazing alchemy can take place. What was painful actually becomes beautiful.

For all of this, we need each other. We are not born with the capacity to self-regulate. This is a skill that is learned and developed over many years. Many of us are still learning this as adults, because we were not taught this as children, and we may not have had any good modelling of how to actually do it. 


Embodied Listening, first and foremost, is about developing these skills and capacities in ourselves. There are definite skills that we can learn and get good at. Making space and time to rest, digest, listen to our inner life, and resource ourselves from a deeper place, is a crucial part of maintaining our physical, mental, emotional and spiritual wellbeing. 

When we have enough capacity, we can then offer that to others. We know how it feels to be in the company of someone who is grounded, present, open and caring. We also know how it feels to be in the company of someone who is scattered, anxious, confused, and stressed. We know which one we'd rather be! But this is a skillset that we actually have to learn and train in and practice every day. 

Listening - Attuning - Receiving - Integrating - Responding 

True leaders are wise people who have developed these capacities in themselves, and know how to support and cultivate them in others. When we develop these capacities in ourselves, we will naturally bring the best of us to the table, with maturity, clarity and love. The world needs so many more people who are skilled in wise listening and motivated by wholesome intention, in our homes, classrooms, clinics, offices, businesses, boardrooms, politics and public service.

It starts with us.

If you are interested, you can watch this video (14 mins) where I begin to explore the topic of Embodied Listening in more depth.