Tara Brach - Listening with an Awake Heart - Part 2 (2018-04-18)

Episode Date: April 20, 2018

Listening with an Awake Heart - Part 2 (2018-04-18) - Deep listening - to our inner life, each other and our world - is an intrinsic expression of our awakened heart. Yet because we have strong conditioning to be caught in wants and fears, there is often much interference in the field of communications. These two talks are an opportunity to intentionally deepen your capacity to listen in a way that leads to increased understanding and connection. You'll have the opportunity to investigate what gets between you and deep listening, and to practice the key elements that nurture receptive presence. The second talk includes questions and responses that focus on having an agenda instead of listening, the feeling that we don't have enough time, listening when we feel reactive (hurt, defensive, intimidated, angry) and the need to feel heard. Your support enables us to continue to offer these talks and meditations freely. If you value them, I hope you will consider offering a donation at this time at www.tarabrach.com/donation/. With gratitude and love, Tara

Greetings. We offer these podcasts freely and your support really makes a difference. To make a donation, please visit tarabrock.com. Namaste and welcome. Tonight's talk is part two of listening with an awake heart. Or as St. Benedict described it, listening with the ears of the heart, which I think is quite lovely. And really had to cultivate an awake. listening presence to our inner life, to each other, to our earth, our world, really create

that intimacy with life. I received a lot of wonderful questions. We invited questions last week. I received them and have tried as well as I can to respond to some of them through the talk and then hopefully we'll have time to take some live questions here also. But I was just really inspired by the quality of the questions. And I think you will be also. So I thought I'd start with a story. I've always loved. A woman writes this from a nursing home, and she says, if only they understood how important it is that we be heard. I can take being in a nursing home. It's really all right with a positive attitude. My daughter has her hands full, three kids in a job. She visits regularly. I understand. But most people here, they just want to tell

their story. That's what they have to give, don't you see? And it's a precious thing to them. It's their life they want to give. You think people would understand what it means to us to give our lives and a story. So we listen to each other. Most of what goes on here is people listening to each other's stories. People who work here consider that to be filling time. If only they knew, if they just take a minute to listen. So I take this in and when I hear this and it's so much not just older people in a nursing home, it's every one of us. listening and feeling heard, both, are absolutely intrinsic to awakening our hearts and cultivating, you know, a very open awareness.

One friend wrote this week in response to the last talk, she said, whenever I'm having a tough time and venting to a friend of mine, she always asked if I want her opinion or if I want her to be a heart with ears. I always appreciate that. And you can feel the quality in that. Like, that is friendship. Sure, I'll give you my opinion, and sometimes it can be helpful. That a heart with ears?

I mean, very cool. Another woman wrote this from Australia, and I just want to name that I got messages from all around the world from this last one. I mean, listening, we know it deep down, that it matters. She says, the places that we are seen and heard are holy spaces, I think these are the spaces I seek. They're the spaces that matter to me and they are the spaces that I know holds my own healing.

So I was reflecting on how if tens of thousands of us just deepened our commitment, even a bit to that kind of listening presence, just the ripples that are possible, just to get a bit more intentional. That's my hope. And of course, for many people, as soon as we begin to have that intention to listen, then it's like right in our face how incredibly hard it is. It really is. Okay, so one cartoon that was sent to me is this couple,

and they're sitting together in a living room, and she's saying, I'm sorry, dear, I wasn't listening. Could you repeat what you've said since we've been married? Well, at least she's trying, you know, belatedly. And then another one I got was as psychiatrist and on his couch as a praying mantis. And the praying mantis is saying, honestly, doctor, I tried to keep the channels of communication open and listen well, but it was so much easier just to eat them. So how well do we listen, you know, when somebody's criticizing us or complaining or going into like incredibly minute detail about something?

something that's like a world away from us. Another person wrote, empathetic listening is the hardest thing I've ever practiced and I've practiced loom weaving classical piano, tatting and baton twirling. That was a great comment. But most of us do think listening is a really good idea until we actually start trying to listen. And so in those moments we just just see how many times, if we start catching ourselves, we're off preoccupied with something else, are planning what we're going to say, are in some way not just open and spacious for the other person. I was contemplating as some of these questions came in, a line of a poem from Martha Postalate

and the line says, create a clearing in the dense forest of your life. and how absolutely profound that is and pertinent it is to this exploration of presence, that in order to be there and awake and open to another person, there has to be some clearing in the dense forest of our preoccupations and thinking. So this is where our meditation training becomes absolutely essential if we're sincere about deepening or listening. And there's a few different ways that meditation comes in. The most obvious one is the more we practice coming out of our thoughts

and back into the moment, like really get the knack of going, oh yeah, thinking, thinking, and let's be here, the more we can do that when we're in a conversation. Oh, okay, I just left, come back. That's one way. And the second is, if the conversation stirs, us up so we're reactive in some way, meditation guides us and how to stay with what's a little difficult and in some way comfort ourselves, bring some soothing, get more resourced.

So we can even be in a conversation and if we've practiced in a meditation getting upset and knowing how to, you know, it's okay sweetheart and feeling ourselves kind of held or feeling a sense of belonging, we can begin to access. that resourcefulness when we're with each other. So we're going to look at both of those, but the first one, coming out of the dense forest of thinking and right back here so we're really have a clearing, I sometimes think of it like music. You can't really listen to music if you're thinking about things, right?

You're not really taking it, it can be background mood, but to really listen. And for those of us that if you really, music is something that kind of really opens you to the heavens, you can't listen if we're thinking. There's a story that I shared this week on Facebook, and I've also shared in past talks on listening, that I really love. And it's a story about a child, and in his class, the class was invited to listen to the sound of a gong.

and you've been, you know the sounds of the gongs. This could be like, here's one of my favorite ones. Listen to something like this and listen all the way till it's over. And that was the assignment. And the teacher basically said, if you listen in this way, you'll come closer to the sacred, the divine, to God. And a little boy that was part of this class went home and told his mother, I listened, and I didn't come closer to God.

I was God. If we're really listening, we become the stillness or silence that's listening. The self isn't in the way. There's just an open, tender, awake space. And so we sense that and it becomes like a meditation when we're really learning to listen to another person because we're really coming back and getting still enough so that that sense of sacred presence is there. One woman wrote, I heard your story about the young boy and the gong and once again I was reminded that when I'm truly listening, I lose all the things that

clutter my being, shutting out my spirit, my nature. So listening is really creating a clearing and in that clearing, in that space, the light of awareness, the warmth of our hearts can shine through. And so then if we start looking at some of the questions that came up, they're all about how we get pulled from that presence over and over. We know we get pulled when we're sitting and meditating. We see how it happens inside us even more when we're with each other because in our relationships there's a whole sense of trying to present a self and defend a self and prove a self and we get into that whole dance so it's even more activated the pulse.

So I've divided the some of the questions they came up in three categories and one is how to work with when we're listening and our agenda comes in the way and we all know what that means and we really we wanted to get the direction to go in a certain way of the conversation or convince somebody were right or control them in some way or impress them and when it's written The agenda is really strong. It's like we're wearing earplugs. We're totally disconnected from what's actually happening. We're just living and experiencing through our own wants and perspective. A story that illustrates us a bit, this agenda piece. I'll just read it to you. About a century or two ago, the Pope decided that all the Jews had to leave Rome. And actually, there was a big uproar

from the Jewish community. So the Pope made a deal. He would have a religious debate with members of the Jewish community. If the Jews won, they could stay. If the Pope won, the Jews would leave. And the Jews realized they'd had no choice, so they picked a middle-aged man named Moisha to represent them, and Moisha asked for one addition to the debate to make it more interesting. Neither side would be allowed to talk. Okay? The Pope agreed. So the day of the great debate comes, and they sit opposite each other for a full minute. And then the Pope raises his hand, he raises his hand, he shows three fingers. And Moisha looks back at him, and he raises one finger.

And the Pope waves his fingers in a circle around his head, and Moisha points to the ground where he sat. The Pope pulls out a wafer and a glass of wine. Wisha pulls out an apple. The Pope stood up and said, I give up. Man's too good. The Jews can stay. An hour later, the cardinals around the Pope asking what had happened.

He said, well, I held up three fingers to represent the Trinity. He responded by holding up one finger to remind me there was one God common to our both of our religions. Then I waved my fingers around me to show that God was all around us, but he responded up, I pointed the ground and showed that God was also right here with us. I pulled out wine and wafer to show that God absolves us from our sins. he pulled out an apple to remind me of original sin. He had an answer for everything. What could I do?

Meanwhile, the Jewish community circled around in worship. What happened, they asked. Will he said, first he said to me that the Jews had three days to get out of here. And I told him not one of us was leaving. He told me this whole city would be cleared of Jews, and I let him know we were staying right here. Yeah, yeah, and then, I don't know. and where she took out his lunch and I pulled out mine.

So I think it's a wonderful illustration of how when we're really not attending, we're just through the filter of our own mind and it's story, right? Okay, so I got this question. How do you have the courage to listen openly without an agenda when you've had a lifetime and a sales career based on asking leading, validating questions? I've found myself framing questions to even why, stages that support what I want to hear and therefore not listening openly. So how do we listen when we have that kind of an agenda?

Or how do we listen when our agendas wanting somebody else to get our point of view? Are getting somebody to change how they're thinking or to stop judging us? And also with the agendas that seem positive. Like I interrupt because I really want to help somebody and have an idea of what can help. Or I interrupt and I don't. let them finish saying what they're saying because I think of a story that relates to what they're saying and I feel like that'll connect us, so the, you know, agendas. So the first thing is if you're monitoring and bearing witness so you get, oh, okay,

there's an agenda going on, if you can get that, then you can pause and sense, well, what's the wisest way here? Will it help to give this person more space to talk or is just It's really the time to bring something in. The reality is for most of us we're unconscious of the fact that we have an agenda and haven't created a clearing. So how do we work with agendas? I'm just going to share some of the steps that I've found helpful and other people have found helpful.

And the first big one is, before a conversation set your intention. to listen. Just set the intention. Know that this is what you want to do. Listen for understanding. Listen for connection. The second is it helps to have an anchor, something that you can come back to

when somebody's talking that'll help you stay here. It could be the breath. It could be the feeling of your whole body or your hands. I sometimes will look at the person's eyes and be wondering about the color of their eyes. And that sounds a little strange, but if I sense the person's eyes and I'm really sensing the color of their eyes,

I'm actually deepening my attention to who's there, and that clears a space sometimes. So we want an anchor that can help us to come out of the dense forest and be here. Then we're noticing, oh, I've left. And we'll start noticing that more, just as when you're meditating, you start catching on, oh, I'm off in thoughts again. It's going to happen.

So we notice that we've left and come back. And sometimes we'll notice that when we're back, there's a real uneasiness or restlessness or discomfort. Just come back and bring some kindness to what's here. It doesn't take much. And it's not like you've all of a sudden are taking a huge long time out to offer yourself a whole lot of loving kindness. just come back, notice what's there, and in your heart and mind go, it's okay, and then resume

listening. Now, how do you deepen a listening attention? How do you clear the field further? I find it helps a whole lot to coach myself. I sometimes just toss in a few words, you know, that it could be something like, I'm here, I'm listening, I want to hear this person. It could be something like, I'm listening to the words and who's behind the words. It's that interest, because interest will help us clear a space. One friend wrote that her coaching words are, it's their turn, just listen. And because she wants to be helpful, she said, this is already helping them. Slow down.

Pay attention. Respect their pace. So find your own self-coaching words that help you to really bring your interest and care and create that space, that clearing. The last piece I'll say right at this moment on when you have an agenda is forgive it. We all have it. It's like we all have something we're wanting and it's not like it just shuts off automatically. But if we notice it we can start stepping out of that wanting trance and really sense

more space. Forgiven, forgiven. Now, I want to add that sometimes the agenda can seem totally benign and good. One mother had the agenda that she really wanted to have her daughter feel comfortable enough to open to her. She'd been reading a lot of books about how to listen to your teen in a way that will create that and there were somewhat estranged and she really deeply wanted to heal it and have her daughter, you know, just bring what's going on to her. But you can hear in that the agenda, right? I want you to open to me, you know? So what would happen was she would try really hard to listen and to ask the questions and show the interest, but she was trying hard and her daughter was like that. So she, and often this is what we need to do, how to do a bit of

meditation when she wasn't in conversation and really investigate that kind of desperate I want her to open to me feeling. So watch that for yourself. If you have an agenda that's really with your child or your partner, you know, to have something happen in a conversation, step out on the sidelines and when you're not in conversation and investigate it, sense where it's coming from, her, she really started catching on that where it was coming from was she felt shut out and there was a real pain of separation and she really wanted her daughter to know that she loved her but this was the way, this was the only strategy she had. So she was clutching. Clutching doesn't draw people to us or have them open. So what she did was she felt that I want

to feel connected. I want her to open, she felt that, and she called on her most wise compassion itself to really help her with it and her future self, who she was becoming. And a future self basically, you know, when she could feel, when she's got in touch with that clutching and so on, basically said simply love her and let be. Love her and let be. In other words, offer her loving kindness from a distance, when you're around her, just wish her the best, but don't try so hard. Trust that you love her, let be. So what happened,

her daughter was a senior, and this was interesting in high school, and she just relaxed the effort. I mean, she still showed interest and so on, but just stopped trying so hard, and they started having more lightweight conversations, but it was something not nothing. Her daughter left for college and then she'd start coming home and more and more she just was sharing what was going on because her mother had more of a clearing, less of an agenda. Last time I talked to her, she said, when I'm with her now I feel like I found the clearing, I'm listening from my future self. So that's another key one, that kind of agenda. I want to move on to another handful of questions I got which had to do with the anxiety

we can have when somebody is talking and we have a feeling we don't have enough time, that sense of I should be doing something else. And I'm curious how many hear when I say that know that one pretty well, that it's very hard to arrive. Yeah, okay. If you're just listening to this as a podcast, that was a lot of it. of us. So, a story for you about not enough time. And this is Gregory Boyle, who has a wonderful book tattoos on the heart. If you haven't read it, I really encourage it. It's one of my favorite

books. And he's a Jesuit priest, and he works with Latino gang members and one of the most violent parts of L.A. And he set up these different businesses and so on that have given them away to really find a sense of dignity and meaning, really wonderful. So he's in his office and it's right before, between the morning mass and then he's supposed to do a baptism and he's running late. So this is the setup. He's got about seven minutes and this woman walks into his office, one of the gang members that he's worked with. Her name's Carmen, she's a heroin addict, a gang member, occasional prostitute, as he describes, it often seemed defiantly storming down the street, usually shouting at someone. So she seats herself and jumps right in. She says, I need help.

She says, ooh, I've been to like 50 rehabs. I'm known all over nationwide. She smiles, her eyes wander around my office and she studies all the photographs hanging there. She multitasks. I went to Catholic school in my life. Fact, I graduated from high school even. In fact, right after graduations, when I started using heroin, Carmen enters some kind of trance at this point, and her speech slows to deliberate and halting. And I have been trying to stop since the moment I began. And then I watch as Carmen tilts her head back until it meets the wall.

Remember, this guy's in a rush, right? He's in a rush. She's staring at the ceiling. and in an instant her eyes become these two ponds, water rising to meet their edges, swollen banks spilling over. Then for the first time really she looks at me and straightens, I am a disgrace. And suddenly her shame meets mine. For when Carmen walked through that door I had mistaken her for an interruption. You understand. I know that so often we're in that trance of on our way somewhere, trying to check things off the list, and anything other than keeping going, hurtling

forward is an interruption and it's often someone else can be our child or our partner. One friend wrote to me and said, multitasking is possible, multi-focus is not. I thought that was so good. So that sense of doing something else and should be doing something else, I know for myself I will have, I spend a certain part of my day writing. Right now I'm writing a book. And I sometimes will schedule a phone appointment or something in there. But often when the time comes, it's like on some level, I'm just really waiting to get back

because I was into something. And so I started letting that be a flag, you know, that's something that would cross my mind of how do I shorten this conversation or whatever it is. and I would just use that as a flag to, okay, come back to the body, feel where the anxiety is, in some way send a message of kindness inwardly and breathe with it. And then in some way that's self-coaching. This matters. This is the life of this moment.

It matters as much as anything else. And that would help. Just that self-cult, that coaching to be there. and I do confess that sometimes I water the plants while I'm listening. But so the reminder here in terms of listening is that we have to have the intention. It has to matter to us. If we're doing it out of a sense of obligation, it won't hold. It has to be deeper than that.

When minister described giving a sermon on a Sunday and he heard two teenage girls at the back, they're giggling and disturbing people. And so he interrupts his sermon and announces sternly, there are two of you here who have not heard a word I've said. Of course, they quiet it down right away, you know. So the service is over, and as some ministers do, he saying goodbye to people as they leave. People kind of shake their hand as they're leaving.

And so he went to do the greeting, and he said, six adults apologize for not listening and falling asleep. They promised it would never have. happen again. Guilty. There was a large cluster, perhaps the largest cluster of questions about listening, we're around, well, what if there's a real sense of aversion going on? There's a real conflict or a sense that somebody's being critical or, you know, whatever it is, it could be different political views, someone telling you something that brings up your judgment or dislike.

someone not listening to you. And we know it. What happens to listening when somebody is criticizing us? Yeah. Done. Ended. It's like the aperture of the mind shrinks. There's a New Yorker cartoon with a couple arguing and he's saying, yeah, well, the Dalai Lama

never had to deal with your whining. You know, you can just see it. So the question, one of the questions that kind of summed up a lot of the questions was, how to be both open and protective, how not to be in a defensive posture when it seems as if defensive posture is necessary for survival. What if the others being manipulative, self-serving? Okay? So what if somebody's coming from a place where they're spewing out anger or something negative and how do you be open then? I don't know. Really? How do you? How do you? It's not easy because your body is having a hard time.

And one person said, isn't it true or asked it? Do you think of it like really listening openly means being able to be with unpleasantness in your body? And the answer is yes. And sometimes it's not worth it. Sometimes the negativity is such that it's really intelligent and compassionate for all involved to not be very engaged and to be defended and to not let in a lot. There's sometimes good reason for that. But if you feel able and you feel there could be something served by

developing your capacity to listen and providing a space of listening even when there's that kind of negativity, let's look now on how we do it. And this is where the second meditation skill comes in. Remember, the first one's notice you've wandered, come back, right? Okay? You know, notice you're in the dense forest, come back. But sometimes to make a clearing, we have to not just come back, but deal with what's inside us that's having a hard time. Because if you don't listen inwardly and sense, yeah, but I'm feeling threatened or yeah, but right now I'm feeling this is hurtful or whatever it is, then you're not going to really be open. body and your heart will contract spontaneously. So how to open and again, you have to be able

to self-nurture. You have to be able to find a way to take care of the part of you that's having a hard time. So if I'm with somebody and I know that when I'm with them in some way I'm going to feel like all they're trying to do is prove themselves and and there's no air in the room, and it feels like oppressive, like I'm almost being disappeared, you know? I have to in some way remind myself that this is, it matters to me

to be able to have the capacity to hold a space. I'm here, it's okay. This is not diminishing. I'm trusting that I'm here and I'm good and I'm okay. There's many ways that we can take care of ourselves. Do it when we're not in the conversation and as we're anticipating it. What

does the part in us that has a hard time need to remember? Ask yourself that. What is the part of you that gets reactive need to remember so that when you're in vivo in the conversation, you can remind yourself? Well, usually what we have to remember is that we belong, we belong to something larger, that love is always loving us. I love that phrase. We need to trust our goodness. We need to trust that we're actually protected in some deep way. We have some inner refuge.

Now when there's a conflict, both people are having to do that. Does that make sense? When there's a conflict, both people are feeling in some way threatened and activated. So both people have to have that resourcing in order to be with each other and have a clear Here's an interesting piece of research. I thought this is really kind of nailed it. A couples therapist and researcher got leave, I think is who it was. He would have couples come in and he'd hook them up to all this instrumentation that measures stress level.

And then he'd have them talk about something that activated them, that brought up conflict. and the machinery re-registering what their brains were doing, cortisol, or whatever else. And then he'd tell them at one point that the machine had broken. It wasn't true, but he'd tell them that, and that they needed to take a little break so they could, and he would do that right when they were kind of peeking in their activation. So they'd go to separate rooms and just wait for 15 minutes.

Now, they weren't meditating, they weren't researching, they weren't doing rain, none of that, they were just sitting there. But 15 minutes, because with the passage of time, even if we're not doing anything helpful, things can settle down. We're not being triggered. Then they'd come back together and lo and behold, they'd resume the conversation a lot more resourced and they'd have much more capacity to meet each other and resolve things. Imagine if your timeout is, and we need timeouts, to be able to listen, we need timeouts.

I hope you're getting that. To create the clearing, often we need to have a timeout so we can resource. But imagine if you're in conflict with someone and you take a timeout that is enough to really bring yourself some comfort and remind yourself of what you need to remember. You reenter in a better way.

So I'll give you an example of this that came to me recently at the end of a retreat a woman shared this with me on how she and her partner got into a conflict. They couldn't listen, how they resourced and came back together. So the conflict had come up. They were having dinner with another couple and the woman had arranged it and the female, other female in the couple was worked on Capitol Hill with her as a staff member. They'd known each other since college. So her husband, her partner, was kind of on the out a bit.

And during the meal, everybody was talking animately and he was animatedly, and he was kind of pulled back, a little bit scowling, cynical, and when he would say something, it was really opinionated, didn't really listen to anybody else, but he was just not in a flow. So they get home and she says, how come you were like that? It's either like you were barely there or else you were channeling Fox News. And he got really angry. He said, they were your friends. I was doing it for you.

And all you can do is tell me I ruined the evening for everyone. And then she says, you're exaggerating. You know, okay, so you get the idea. This is no clearing. They were both in the dense forest of their reactivity. It was not a romantic ending. So the next day, she was feeling the Chelsea. said, let's talk and he goes, no, I have enough stress at work, I don't want to be attacked at home.

So there was a real waiting period during her meditation, and this is what's important again, because she had the intention to have listening and have connection, but she needed to first do the inner work, okay, to create a clearing. She started examining and noticing how much her mind was circling in self-justification. He had been withdrawn and edgy and then defensive, what was wrong with acknowledging. And so she's listening to this inside her, okay, I'm blaming him. How come I was so bothered? And then she got under that and sensed, well, I want him to like my friends and I want them to like each other. And when he pulls away, I feel separated from him. So she was really going for connection, but she was going about it in not the most intelligent way.

And so as she took that in, as she connected with that, she felt better about herself and gave more space to kind of bring him to mind and really sense how he had felt insecure and uncomfortable. So she had done the inner work. They get back together and apparently he had done enough of it because they each spoke and the other listen. And when he spoke and said, look, you know, I felt like an outsider. I'm out of the loop of the political world you're immersed in, I felt uncomfortable, I didn't

feel like I belonged. And she had this clearing that she didn't have to defend anything. She could hear the insecurity. And then she spoke without blame saying, I'm just attached to everyone feeling connected and it just matters to me. I felt hurt at your withdrawal. And they were able to hear each other. There was timeout, inner resourcing, more connection.

The problem is not conflict. Conflict is inevitable. We all have needs that don't get met and we trigger each other. And if we're close, it definitely happens. I mean, it's part of every relationship. The question is, can we have conflict and then find our way back to having that clearing so we can listen? Listen inwardly first and then to each other. In this same domain one of the questions was, well, what if the other is not creating a clearing?

How do you manage the judgment and frustration of not being heard, wishing that the other was a better listener? So I want to address that piece just a little bit. Some people, as one woman from Australia described, it said that I'm always the listener of the group. It's not just sometimes with some bad listeners. I'm always a listener. It's my nature to be quiet.

I've gotten into that role and now everybody expects me to be that and I don't know how to get out of it. So sometimes it's like that. I know a number of people that are much more comfortable listening and then everybody just assumes that and they become the speaker. And if that's the case, then we need to do the inner examining and say, well, what's between me and really expressing myself? What's stopping me? You know, sometimes we're attached to being the listener because we think that's what'll bring the friends. People won't like us anymore for the one that's expressing

ourselves. So that's one way that can happen. But there's another thing that happens too. We sometimes are with people that really don't have the capacity to listen. They just, that's most of us to some degree. I mean really, listening's hard, as the woman at the beginning said. And it's often uneven in relationships. In fact, I'd say most of the time there's some unevenness in how well people can listen. Some people can listen better because they're just not having as much reaction going on inside them, there might be less trauma in their lives, less stress. Some people can't listen practically

at all because there's been so much trauma that it just, they're very, very defended. So the question is, if you're with somebody that doesn't listen as well as you, I mean, you can either be resentful and that's a natural thing and then honor that and feel, feel, and honor your need to be listened to. But then you can also explore this kind of perspective that you're blessed if you have more capacity to listen. And to the degree you really open a space for another person, if you remember the metaphor of the fountain, that most people are clogged,

that most people feel like others don't want to hear them or don't understand them, when we get really good listening, our fountain starts getting unclogged, and we can start expressing. And if you provide that for someone, If you have a really kind space of listening and they begin to feel like they can express themselves, they start experiencing a clearing.

They start then having room for you. It really can work that way. One woman from Norway says the importance of listening with an away card and making possible for the person to come forth from a deeper well is beautiful. I've seen it happen many times in my life and the older I get the more seems to happen and I'm less occupied with being heard myself. But then again, I love to meet people who really genuinely are interested in me and curious enough to ask questions and engage.

So I guess I believe it's important at any age to be heard and seen. This isn't about being a martyr and saying, okay, I'm going to make the clearing and I'll hold a space for everyone. It's not that. It's about having that capacity because it's a blessing to be able to have a clearing and hold a space and it helps people and to know that we all need to be heard and we need to find places

because those are holy spaces where we are heard. I want to just a few final things and then I want to invite a couple of people here in the room that might have questions. I just want to say that mostly in these two talks I have been doing more of a dive into how we listen in our personal relationships.

But one woman from Australia wrote, your talk on listening reminded me of the concept of deep listening as a way of being for our first nation people. I feel there's so much possibility for healing when we listen and are open and receptive to the earth to each other. So I want to just name that, although we're looking at listening with each other here, this capacity to clear a space is the only answer to polarization. It's the only response to the cycles of violence.

It's the only ways we can interrupt them is to listen deeply and out of care, seek to understand, seek to make the bridge. This is what we get. This is the principle behind the truth and reconciliation processes that are cropping up all over the world. 40 of them launched worldwide, I think. I always think of the story of one young man in one of those processes who have been blinded.

This is South Africa when a policeman shot him in the face at close range. So he said after being as part of the truth and reconciliation processes, I feel what has brought my eyesight back is to come here and tell the story. I feel what has been making me sick all the time is the fact that I couldn't tell my story. listening creates relationship between us and our inner life, each other, and between peoples that have been divided. So, I'm going to pause here. We have time for just two or three questions if anyone right now has one on anything you've heard.

And if you have the mic, the thing I'd like to ask you is to hold them. mic right by your chin and speak right into the mic so we can hear you. Is there anyone that has a question in mind? And by the way, when you ask the question, try just a sentence or two. That'll help for all of us. Yeah. The question is, I really believe myself and from what I've learned, is that there are really intrinsically two parts. There's a sender and a receiver. Sender and receiver, yeah. And that the, like your comment on the importance of both. If you'd have one and not the other, that's it.

So this is really a beautiful bringing into this conversation that it's really the capacity both to speak and speak from our hearts, be honest, and also to receive. And sometimes some people have those capacities and they're communicating with others that don't have them as much. So that's something that we have to kind of find in our hearts, how do we want to deal with that? I've had so many people, and I've known it myself, feel that frustration and

resentment when somebody else can't listen. They're always interrupting. To feel unheard is really painful. So we need to be able to take care of ourselves. But you're absolutely right. We need to be able to receive what others. are saying and be able to be present enough to what's true inside us to speak from that place and they're both a training. So thank you for that. Yeah, they're both a training. Yeah, so anyone else? So I grew up in a culture that we looked into eyes when we talk, I mean, we're listening. And we also listened from heart. So when I moved to West, I had to learn two things in communication. One I had to think and think through head and the other one is I

have to look a person's eyes when I'm listening. So I learned that and you know it was really hard at the beginning to look into eyes because you know where I'm from it's rude to look at eye when somebody's talking. Today I'm comfortable looking at eyes but I can still here better you have no looking into eyes. I know looking into eyes is a part of sort of sign that you are listening in the West. So I have trouble with this, you know. So the trouble is looking into eyes.

I can't really pay attention. I get more distracted for listening. If I don't look into eye, then I know they think I'm rude. If you don't look in their eyes, they're going to think you're rude. Yeah. So for you, do you look into their eyes? And then what happens if you do look into their eyes?

They feel like? When I look into eyes, then I get more distracting. You get more understanding. And more into my head. Oh, you get into your head if you look into their eyes. Yes. Ah. Then I wouldn't look into their eyes.

But I would go back and forth. Do you know what I mean? By going back and forth? if you need to look away. I think what you're saying is really important because for many people, that intimacy of eye contact gets some tightened up

and then they get busier in their mind. Yes. And it's also cultural, like how close do you stand, how much do you look into a person's eyes and so on? Sometimes it's considered polite actually not to, because it feels like staring.

So you have to find your own balance, but experiment with it. That would be the thing I'd encourage you to do, to experiment with looking some, looking away, coming back into your body, use your body as an anchor, and then see if you can, breathing and in your body be able to look again just for a bit, just the way we are, and then if you need to look away, experiment with that. It's a wonderful thing you bring up. Thank you. Yeah. Maybe one more. If anybody has a question, there we go. Thank you so much, Tara, for your beautiful talk.

And the truth of what you're saying is, my professional life is to listen to people, but I get paid for it. One of the most favorite insult from my late beloved husband was, outside of your work, you're just another dumb housewife. And if you're not being paid for you don't think or listen. And over the years, I can't decide which is my favorite insult. but I think both are true, but it is so hard to be listened to. And to respect that. It's just playing hard.

I really love what you bring in because to me, if we're not respecting that and really, really forgiving, then it turns into like we're in a training that we're failing at, and that doesn't feel good. So maybe as part of wrapping up or closing, just to say that the heart of this is intention, that we're in training to listen because there's something deep in us that knows

that it's a pathway to intimacy in our lives. It really is. And so that in order to be able to step on that path, we have to be intimate, kind, and forgiving to ourselves because we're all conditioned. And if we can do that, and then just, no, it's really literally a muscle we can train. Each one of us can do it and it makes such a difference for our world.

So let's just take a moment. We'll do a bit of a closing. With interest and care, listen inwardly right now. Listen so that you can notice, you can be aware of what's going on inside you. listen to your body, to your heart. Scanning your life you might bring to mind someone that you want to practice deepening your listening with, that you want to both be able to listen and also speak in a wise way,

someone that you have that intention to explore it with, and that there may be hopefully many, but just for now bringing to mind one person, feeling your sincere intention, and knowing that you want to be able to listen even when you're triggered, even when there's something uncomfortable going on, that you want to have that capacity to come back from the dense forest, to take care inwardly and then to open the attention and listen. And you might imagine a situation where you'll be with this person, sense what anchor

you'd like to have, what's going to help you to come back. Is it going to be your breathing? Is it going to be your hands, your feet, your body? You might sense how you could get triggered. What could come up that would make you really not have enough of a clearing? Maybe you'd get triggered because you have so much you want to say or put into the put-out or that you want to be recognized in some way. You get triggered because your agenda is that you're just wanting to be helpful but you just

keep interrupting. Maybe you get triggered because you feel like the other person is not including you and giving you space or whatever it is that goes on and with this person. Maybe you anticipate being pulled away because you feel like there's not enough time. Just anticipate. And right in these moments, sense how you want to take care of yourself so that you will have enough space. What do you want to remember?

What might be a coaching phrase? Could be there's plenty of time, it's okay. This is what matters right now. Or it's their turn. Let them speak. This is helping to create a space. I'm okay. There's love that's holding me.

I can be here right now. You sense how you might comfort yourself, remind yourself, and imagine being with this person having created that clearing, being like open, tender space that has room for them, just to be however they are and sense who you are when that clearing is there, when there's space for another and deep presence. Who are you? and letting go of any notions of being with another person in conversation. And just right now, in this very moment, sense that listening presence.

Just listen. Be the silence that's listening. And sense how that silence, that space of listening can be filled with tenderness so that whatever arises in these last few moments in awareness can be held in that kind of loving presence, received, included. Namaste, and thank you for your beautiful listening presence. For more talks and meditations,

and to learn about my schedule or join my email list, please visit tarabrock.com.