Perhaps one of the most precious and powerful gifts we can give another person is to really listen to them, to listen with quiet fascinated attention, with our whole being, fully present. This sounds simple, but if we are honest with ourselves, we do not often listen to each other so completely.

Listening is a creative force. Something quite wonderful occurs when we are listened to fully. We expand, ideas come to life and grow, we remember who we are. Some speak of this force as a creative fountain within us that springs forth; others call it the inner spirit, intelligence, true self. Whatever this force is called, it shrivels up when we are not listened to and thrives when we are.

The way we listen can actually allow the other person to bring forth what is true and alive to them. Sometimes we have to do a lot of listening before the fountain is replenished. Have you ever noticed how some people seem to need to talk? They go on and on, usually in a very superficial, nervous manner. This is often because they have not been truly listened to. Patience is required to listen to such a person long enough for them to get to their center point of tranquility and peace. The results of such listening are extraordinary. Some would call them miracles.

Listening well takes time, skill, and a readiness to slow down, to let go of expectations, judgments, boredom, self-assertiveness, defensiveness. I’ve noticed that when people experience the depth of being listened to like this, they also begin to listen to others in the same way.

Listening is an art that calls for practice. Imagine if we all spent just a few minutes each day practicing the art of listening, being fully present with the person we are with. There would be a collective sigh of contentment and joy. Listen! —Kay Lindahl

And…

Unsatisfying communication is rampant in our society: in relationships between spouses, parents, and children, among neighbors and co-workers, in civic and political life, and between nations, religions, and ethnicities. Can we change such deeply ingrained cultural patterns? Is it possible to bring about a shift in the modes of communication that dominate our society? Contemplative practices, with their committed cultivation of self-awareness and compassion, may offer the best hope for transforming these dysfunctional and damaging social habits.

A fruitful place to begin work on shifting our patterns of communication is with the quality of our listening. Just as we now understand the importance of regular exercise for good health, we need to exercise and strengthen our ability as listeners.

Poor listeners, underdeveloped listeners, are frequently unable to separate their own needs and interests from those of others. Everything they hear comes with an automatic bias: How does this affect me? What can I say next to get things my way? Poor listeners are more likely to interrupt: either they have already jumped to conclusions about what you are saying, or it is just of no interest to them. They attend to the surface of the words rather than listening for what is “between the lines.” When they speak, they are typically in one of two modes. Either they are “downloading”—regurgitating information and pre-formed opinions—or they are in debate mode, waiting for the first sign that you don’t think like them so they can jump in to set you straight…

Good listening, by contrast, means giving open-minded, genuinely interested attention to others, allowing yourself the time and space to fully absorb what they say. It seeks not just the surface meaning but where the speaker is “coming from”—what purpose, interest, or need is motivating their speech. Good listening encourages others to feel heard and to speak more openly and honestly. —David Rome and Hope Martin

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© Pamir Kiciman 2010

Listening is a vital part of life, relationships, and the spiritual path. It’s also a lost art! There’s just too much noise in the world, and perhaps worse than that is internal noise. There are mental and emotional filters that block true listening. It’s impossible to get through these filters and be received, just as…as is. True listening is a commitment. It’s also the ability to sense what’s not being said, or what’s signaled in a subtle way. To be truly present to life, others, yourself and the Divine, the portal of listening must be wide open, and a dimension with which you’re intimately familiar.

Listening is so very powerful. To be so, it has to come from deep silence within. That silence is cultivated and isn’t available on a magical command. Listening is not hearing. You hear a car go by. You listen to someone’s suffering. In true listening there’s an unmistakable recognition. It is the meeting and merging of hearts. If you’re able to receive the person across from you from the ground of being, then something real is happening.

There are different forms of listening. In Nature, listening isn’t merely appreciating bird calls, but feeling the vibrancy of life and the heartbeat of the Earth. Within the individual, listening is that clear self-awareness that knows the traps, and also ensures we’re not absent from any part of us for too long. In the relationship with the Divine, listening becomes total receptivity and willingness.

If you listen openly and without filters or an agenda to another person, a great rapport is established. You become a receptacle for that person. Not an expert, not someone who will offer a diagnosis or advice; you’re not there to strategize or crunch statistics. You’re simply there. And you hold the other person’s suffering, shame, guilt, anger or other diminishment. Just hold it and hold space with them. When this is happens from cultivated silence within, this space becomes sacred, and what they share holy.

True listening yields information beyond the content of the sharing. It’s a chance for renewal and transformation. Insight becomes readily available for both parties. The story is acknowledged, and there’s a precious opportunity to transcend it. When you commit to listening, you commit to the person who needs you in that moment. It’s a bond. If you show up, it often encourages him or her to show up too. Then the mask can fall, and truth be revealed. There’s real strength in that.

Listening is a magnetic and strange thing, a creative force…When we are listened to, it creates us, makes us unfold and expand. Ideas actually begin to grow within us and come to life…When we listen to people there is an alternating current, and this recharges us so that we never get tired of each other…and it is this little creative fountain inside us that begins to spring and cast up new thoughts and unexpected laughter and wisdom. …Well, it is when people really listen to us, with quiet facinated attention, that the little fountain begins to work again, to accelerate in the most surprising way. —Brenda Ueland

Each post for the Reiki Help Blog can take anywhere from 1-5 days to write/research, proofread/edit, and post with an appropriate image and formatting. If you leave this space with any value, knowledge, joy or understanding, please consider making a donation of your choice.

Donate to this blog. Thank you!

This is dedicated to my mother, a good friend, and my paternal grandparents for whom I was woefully unavailable, as well as all caregivers.

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Are you the caregiver for a dependent? Does it feel unrewarding? Is it burdensome?

Well, take a load off. It wouldn’t be caregiving if it was all fun and games. You’re not a robot. Sometimes, perhaps often it’s not going to feel good. At all. Ease up and be good to yourself. It is a great and arduous service.

Here are four qualities to cultivate as you navigate this experience:

• Compassion
• Detachment
• Recognition
• The long view

Compassion

Compassion is a selfless form of passion, a self-indulgent emotion transformed by wisdom into empathy for the suffering of others. The emotional energy of compassion is every bit as potent as ordinary passion, but rather than scattering energy and disrupting equanimity with bouts of unrestrained emotion, compassion focuses energy and motivates intent to apply one’s wisdom and other resources towards helping people.

–Daniel Reid

Compassion is an essential life quality. If it can help the Dalai Lama keep his equanimity, it can help you. When compassion becomes an anchored part of your being, your human heart becomes greater. It is no longer so little and fragile. There is this grid that becomes available, like steel rebars that support concrete buildings. Except this steel is steely without losing feeling; strong without being harsh; immaterial but so very present; long lasting without loss of meaning.

Compassion makes the heart sacred and it is from there that you serve, not from your personal heart. Compassion is the extra hand to carry, ear to listen, pep to finish, patience to linger, forgiveness to smile, and surplus kindness.

And it isn’t only for the other. It is for both of you. Compassion is available to you and you are in as much need of it as your dependent. Compassion doesn’t separate and classify. There isn’t any hierarchy in it. Compassion isn’t allocated by approval, you don’t have to qualify.

You do have to make yourself available to it.

Detachment

Learn to detach…Don’t cling to things, because everything is impermanent…But detachment doesn’t mean you don’t let the experience penetrate you. On the contrary, you let it penetrate fully. That’s how you are able to leave it… Take any emotion–love for a woman, or grief for a loved one, or what I’m going through, fear and pain from a deadly illness. If you hold back on the emotions–if you don’t allow yourself to go all the way through them–you can never get to being detached, you’re too busy being afraid. You’re afraid of the pain, you’re afraid of the grief. You’re afraid of the vulnerability that love entails. But by throwing yourself into these emotions, by allowing yourself to dive in, all the way, over your head even, you experience them fully and completely. You know what pain is. You know what love is. You know what grief is. And only then can you say, ‘All right. I have experienced that emotion. I recognize that emotion. Now I need to detach from that emotion for a moment.’

–Mitch Albom

Detachment is a place of self-control and objectivity. It is the starting place of the long view. When detached your goat is ungettable! Your buttons are unavailable and you protect yourself. There’s fluidity of motion and action and patience is effortless. Detachment allows service to come through you, rather than from you.

Caregiving is a series of tasks, on one level. These tasks may become tiresome and put pressure on your time and energy. Yet the tasks are unavoidable. When approached with resentment, dread, inattention and emotional escalation, you’re tired and unavailable from the get-go.

Detachment creates spaciousness in heart and mind, and powers your limbs for the tasks at hand.

Recognition

I wasn’t able to find an appropriate quote for what I want to say here, so this one is mine:

Recognize that everything that rubs you the wrong way about your dependent is an unhealed part in them expressing itself, crying out for help, looking to be recognized and loved, to be heard and held, to be made whole however desperately.

Recognition is to see the person behind the dependency. More, to see the soul behind the person. Recognition is to not equate the person with their suffering. Suffering is part of the person, but it is not the person. It is something they are going through and they are in fear. So are you probably.

When you recognize what is actually happening, your buttons are again unavailable, your goat is happily bleating and there is more spaciousness. The way your dependent makes you feel is not personal. It is about them and it simply is. You must let their behavior bounce off of you, for they can’t help it.

The other side of recognition is to be very aware of your own resources and limits. Like compassion, recognition works both ways. Where do you stop and the other person begins? You may be a caregiver, but you retain autonomy and the two of you haven’t merged.

Recognize not only your limits but also your own needs. Endlessly giving doesn’t work for either party, quality care suffers and so do you. This requires a promise. A promise you keep and act upon. It is simple but you must be resolute. If you need a fill-in, be resolute about that too.

The long view

Kalpa: An exceptionally-long (but varying) period of time in Hindu and Buddhist thought.

Every 100 years, a bird flies over the summit of Mount Sumeru and, in so doing, brushes the pinnacle with a red silk scarf held in its beak. A kalpa is the period of time it takes to wear the mountain down to nothing by this activity.

No, that is not how long you have to give care! It is only a lens to help you get perspective. The burden of care you’re giving is circumscribed in the temporal. There is much more to reality than the temporal.

Service is merit and merit is spiritual currency you want to have as you navigate eternity.

Not only that, but when you serve meritoriously it gives the served an opportunity to grow and evolve too. This may be very hidden and completely unobservable, but do not despair. Practicing awareness enhancers such as compassion, detachment and recognition creates a crucible of heart energies and thoughts for personal growth and spiritual development to take place, even if the other person is not actively engaged.

Furthermore, the way you view the person you care for, how you approach and interact determines greatly what responses and reactions you receive. If you think they are cranky and demanding, then that’s what they will be. You get what you expect. One way to avoid this is to expect something different. Envision and affirm more productive and cooperative behavior and interaction.

Hold this person in a new light, the light of possibilities. They may be entrenched in their patterns and misery, but you can trust that they would rather not be. They would rather have dignity returned and show appreciation, share a smile and a warm look.

Create the space of sacred heart for mutual acknowledgment, trust and solidarity. You’re in it together and the sooner you surrender power struggles, the more rewards there will be. This may include you neutralizing any power plays coming from the person in need of your care. Yes, it seems like you have to do all the work, all the inner work, and all the outer work. Yet, right there a gate opens to a garden where the sun shines and the beauty of flowers is available equally to both of you.

I have learnt silence from the talkative, toleration from the intolerant, and kindness from the unkind; yet strange, I am ungrateful to these teachers.

– Kahlil Gibran

Bob Randall, a Yankunytjatjara elder and traditional owner of Uluru (Ayer’s Rock), explains how the connectedness of every living thing to every other living thing is not just an idea but a way of living. This way includes all beings as part of a vast family and calls us to be responsible for this family and care for the land with unconditional love and responsibility.

The Healer represents an inclusive model. At its highest, this means that there’s an embodied realization of the Oneness of All That Is. This is a state of enlightenment. But it need not be other-worldly. At the social level it means including other. Of course this can only be engendered by the solid knowing that life is from One, undifferentiated source where there is no separation. This meta-level knowing must also be turned into healing action where other dissolves.

Let’s look at the Healer outside the confines of a healing context for a moment. Can anyone be a Healer? Yes. Anyone who has integrated and embodied a non-materialistic worldview, and this informs their understanding is a Healer. If you see the person in front of you as being six feet away, someone other and separate, if you highlight your differences in age, gender, race and social standing, then it’s a fragmented, dualitistic worldview that only leads to a limited embrace, very quickly threatened by ‘me and mine’ positioning in the frail mind.

Can you accept that the person in front of you reaches beyond the limits of his or her skin? Can we grow our understanding to know that they are not contained in their skin or defined by it, that the space between two people is illusory?

In reality, that is non-material reality, there’s a common ground of connection and unity between two people which is the Healer’s domain. In that domain we share humanity, resources, power, love, burdens and life.

The Healer’s worldview also comes into play in the relationship between human and Nature, which includes all its systems and life forms. The predominant approach is that the world outside of us is just that, outside! It is yet again, other.

Whether human or environment, when viewed as other the responsibility of kinship is so easily and callously discarded. The natural care of the heart is shut off and we enter destructive patterns of dominance, consumption and profit.

Just as we’re dependent on every single human that cohabitates this planet with us, we’re dependent on the planet itself, and it is dependent on us.

Symbiosis is the Healer’s virtue and strength. To install this lens over the eyes of the heart is the work of love and love at work.

It is love that reveals to us the eternal in us and in our neighbors.

–Miguel de Unamuno

to be continued…

No matter the circumstances, acknowledgment is a powerful form of love. Be generous in your big or small acknowledgment of family, partners, friends, neighbors, colleagues, coworkers, and even when interacting with strangers.

Sometimes acknowledgment is an act of bravery. It requires one to go against the tide, to stand up for or admit something. Unless there are people willing to take such a risk, individuals, families, nations and the world continues to suffer. Acknowledgment is a powerful change agent.

When we see and hear others, we see and hear ourself. Our stories unite and each becomes enriched. We realize we share humanity and this leads to understanding, which fosters compassion. Acknowledgment is a mirror that eliminates “other.”

Acknowledgment is a way of knowing, not merely a nod or a tip of your hat. It’s connective. It weaves a fabric of knowing which holds and cradles us. It’s a form of selflessness that leaves our individuality intact. Essential life information and meaning are imparted to us when we see and hear others. Our sense of self deepens and expands because acknowledgment jumps over divisions of economic status, race, language, culture, and belief. It even reaches across species.

And there the vacuum fills itself, the isolation ends.

Love consists in this, that two solitudes protect and touch and greet each other.
–Rainer Maria Rilke, “Selected Poetry“

This is part of Nneka at Balanced Life Center’s 2007′s Season of Gratitude. My first post in the series is here.