Your Ears: The Best Gift of All -- In Three Steps

"Deep listening is miraculous for both listener and speaker. When someone receives us with open-hearted, non-judging, intensely interested listening, our spirits expand."
Sue Patton Thoele

YOUR DE-TALK CENTER

Here is an excellent and effective way to improve your listening. Find your Listening Center, a place and a way your body can help you listen. Do just three things to put yourself in your Listening Center.

SHUSH, JJ

Remember Judgment Jabber (JJ), that internal voice that judges you? It can be a mighty powerful impediment to listening. It's the voice inside that tells you are doing something incorrectly, or you can't do something, or you are not doing well enough, or someone does not like you, or you are ignorant, or your hair is wrong. Recognize that voice?

Some of us are not aware that Judgment Jabber is talking to us and competing for our attention when we are trying to listen. Or that it is making us so nervous that we cannot listen well.

By becoming aware of the voice, we very often lessen its negative effects. We can even talk to it. Give it a name and ask it to be quiet for a while. "Jezebel, I am busy listening right now. Shhh." You will be surprised at how the recognition can calm it. That's the first step in finding your Listening Center.

"The greatest motivational act one person can do for another is to listen."
Roy E. Moody

DIS-ARMOR YOURSELF

We all have places in our body where we hold our tension -- our personal body armor. Mine is usually in my jaw. This tension can be a great interference with listening. However, if we are conscious of it, we can catch this tension when it begins to take hold, stop it and relax it. Check for your body armor when you are listening. Relaxing it is the second step in going to your Listening Center.

"Trees are the earth's endless effort to speak to the listening heaven."
Rabindranath Tagore

THE LISTEN POSITION

We have a certain posture, maybe more than one, which we associate with listening. Right now assume a posture that indicates that you are hearing just about the most boring person you have ever heard. That's your opposite-of-listening posture.

And now assume a posture that says you are listening to the most fascinating and brilliant person ever and you want to hear every word. That is your listening posture. If you pay attention to the posture of your body when you are listening, you have taken the third step in resting in your Listening Center.

That's all there is to it. Still your Judgment Jabber, relax, and put your body in a listening posture. Go to your Listening Center and it will be a tremendous ally in making you an excellent listener.

AND TODAY . . .

"When you listen attentively to somebody, you forget yourself. If you cannot forget yourself, you never listen."
Osho

You can easily make your Listening Center a part of you, second nature, and automatic. It simply takes a bit of practice. Today begin your practice. When you are listening, consciously follow the three steps to your Listening Center.

It may feel a bit awkward in the beginning but the more you do it, the more it will become a part of you, a splendid habit.

Find your Listening Center at least once an hour today. It will become easier and easier. Today is the first day in developing your new habit. As the days go by, you will marvel at how easy and effortless it is for you to listen.

The benefits are astounding: friends, success, respect, much more.

And you will be surprised at what you will hear when you really listen.

©Copyright 2002 Stephanie West Allen
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