While I would like to thank I am a good listener, I am mindful that at times I am not as good a listener as I would like to be. I am sure that is pretty sure for most people. How often do we feel as if we are giving people our undivided attention? How often when we are talking are we thinking about what we are going to say in response to what the other person is saying, instead of just listening?
I can’t speak for anyone else, but my greatest fear has been that if I just sat and listened and gave another person my undivided attention that I would not know what to say. Then I began to think about how when I stop and listen to God I know what to write. When I just stop and listen to my cats, I know what to do. So maybe the same might be true if I just listened. So I began to just sit and listen to people as they spoke and gave them my undivided attention. I just listened and told myself that it would be okay if I did not have something to say immediately. It was more important that I was fully present for the person and gave them my undivided attention.
I stepped forward in faith and just sat and listened. I just sat and listened. I did not think about what I was going to say next. Then he stopped talking and I began speaking. To this day I have no idea what I said, but whatever it was that I said resonated with my friend. So now, I work at trying to listen to people without thinking and just being present. I realize now that it is in my silence, in my gift of undivided attention, in my gift of listening that the Universe gives me the words to speak. May we each become mindful os how we listen and practice the sacred art of listening.