Tara Brach - The Power of Deep Listening - Part 1 (2021-03-03)

Episode Date: March 5, 2021

The Power of Deep Listening - Part 1 (2021-03-03) - Listening deeply is the gateway to realizing connection. It's what allows us to move through life with a wise, loving and healing presence. These two talks explore our blocks to true listening, and offer teachings and practices that can directly cultivate this invaluable capacity.

Greetings. We offer these podcasts freely and your support really makes a difference. To make a donation, please visit tarabrock.com. Welcome again, friends. It really is good to be together. And I thought I'd start by just naming a compelling question that so many people I know around the globe are reflecting on right now. And that is what will bridge the divides. And I know you know what I mean, what will bridge the divides? I mean, what will help us humans evolve beyond our separate, cocooned realities that end up creating so much distrust and fear and violence? In this talk, what I'd like to do is focus on one key way each of us can contribute to evolving consciousness, to evolving our own consciousness and our species consciousness.

And that's cultivating our capacity for deep listening. I mean, just imagine if people from different political parties and groups and nations in conflict actually did a little bit of training and practice so that they could a little bit more listen to each other, to get some sense of being able to look through another's eyes, which Henry David Thro described as the greatest miracle possible, really, to look through each other's eyes. It is possible, though. We have this built-in capacity to listen and we can cultivate listening and of course it is difficult.

So for starters, I thought I'd give you a couple of examples of the kind of challenges we face. The first cartoon that I'll tell you about, there's a couple sitting together watching TV and she's saying to him, you know, you only hear the things you want to hear. and he responds, A beer sounds lovely, thank you. Second cartoon, job interview. The employer is asking, well, Mr. Jeffers, where do you see yourself five years from now?

Response. I'd say my biggest weakness is my listening skills. I know you get the idea. It's kind of like I think Calvin Coolidge said it best that no one has ever listened themselves out of a job. So by extension, we don't listen ourselves out of relationships. This theme, I'm imagining many of you, it's not only something you're aware of, it's something you're consciously working on. I know for myself, it's a life

process and it's so interesting that now and then I get more conscious of, oh, this is really, really important, this matters, and then I rededicate. It's really energizing to rededicate. I love that. So if you feel like this is the right time for you to deepen your commitment to how you listen, right close in with the people right around you, it creates a group energy to do that together and it helps our world. So a key understanding is that the capacity to listen is not just another skill on the checklist of good personhood. you know, it's really a dimension of presence.

Being able to listen is a dimension of presence. It's an intrinsic facet of evolving consciousness. And it impacts all dimensions of living. And you might just consider inner listening. You know, how are we going to be intimate with our own being? How are we going to attune to the state of our heart and acknowledge when there's loneliness or when there's fear or longing? So inner listening is how we become more at home with ourselves.

And then of course listening to each other. There's no way to have real intimacy, connection, and understanding unless we can listen. And then in our contemporary society, I really do believe that trainings to listen, bringing people from conflicting sides together to practice listening will give a a gateway for more collaboration, more understanding. And then of course in terms of, if we want to call it the spiritual path, it's really those moments where we stop all doings and we become profoundly receptive, quiet, open. It's that listening presence that really those are the moments that we touch and taste

the mystery, that we receive beauty, that we start to perceive and intuit that formless, timeless awareness that's really home. So it really gives us a sense of the sacred. So I'm naming the different levels and we'll be exploring primarily how do we listen more deeply with those we're engaged with, whoever you spend time talking with the most. And maybe we'll just pause here for a moment. I'll do several reflections through our time. This first reflection, and when we do them, if it helps you to close your eyes, please do, it always helps me.

It's just to take a moment and bring to mind someone you know who is a really good listener, someone you know who's a good listener. And take a moment to consider this. And some of you might notice when I ask that that it's, there aren't many that come to mind. It's a very select handful. But whoever comes to mind and therapists count, just kind of close in a little and sense, okay, so what characterizes good listening? What are the qualities of heart and mind that are there with someone when they're really being a good listener?

And for those of you that want to, you can share a word on chat. You know, what's the main word for you that really characterizes a good listener? Present, interested, curious, compassionate, patient, empathy, presence, giving, honoring, listening beneath the words, never interrupts, curious. inquisitive, truly seeing, quietness, authenticity, silence, unconditional positive regard, selfless, open. You are naming so many, you're naming the constellation, and I thank you for it. you know, in Buddhism the archetype of the Bodhisattva of compassion, Kuan Yin. The bodhisattva is described as listening to the cries of the world and responding with compassion.

And the bodhisattva embodies that the words you describe, that openness, that intimate presence, that tenderness, that acceptance. So there's a reason that that's an archetype for our human species because that's really what is possible. That is possible that we can learn to bring that receptive presence engaging with others. A bit of information now that I find interesting, which is from some of the research on listening. Okay? 85% of what we know we learned from listening.

75% of the time we're distracted, preoccupied, or forgetful. 75% of the time. One hour after listening, we recall 20% of what we heard. The average person listens at only 25% efficiency. 25% efficiency. So now test. I want to know how many we're listening. Can you repeat those stats?

And you can do it on chat? No, I'm totally joking. Because I can't, numbers don't stay with me. But anyway, the point that I'm trying to make is that we aren't meeting our potential for listening. We've got huge potential and we don't come near to it. And not only that, it's getting worse. As a species, and many of you probably,

know this, that our human attention span has now dropped to just eight seconds, and that's down from 12 seconds in 2000. So the last 20 years have not been like stellar years in terms of how well we're doing. It's pointed out regularly also that our attention span is one second lower than that of a goldfish. So what to me is really compelling is that there's the research that shows the effect of technology on our brain. And we all know there's huge amount of information and too little time to process. So what does the brain do? Well, the brain gets habituated to dividing attention. Mostly we have very divided attention and it also gets habituated to shifting very quickly from one thing to the next to the next to the

next. And what that develops is this addiction to novelty. It's like it's very hard to to restrain from checking out what's popped up on the screen because we get hooked on new things. The upshot though is, with this divided attention and hopping around, is that we have a much less efficient brain and we're not able to filter information in a deep, absorbent way. And the research on teen brains is very, it's scary, more screen time, more attention deficits and for all of us, the more we're plugged into the internet, the more we're in front of a screen, the less capacity to concentrate, to immerse, to slow down, to open and clear, which are all the kind of elements that we together were describing for that authentic

presence and listening. So let's pause again and reflect together. Let's take a pause and this is a scan, just a little bit of a scan of your own listening. And I might invite you to not continue sharing on chat or looking at chat for a little bit because it actually does exactly what we're talking about, it divides us. So let's all get here and deepen our attention now. So the inquiry is with real curiosity, without any judgment, just to notice what you can see about your own listening and start with it inwardly. This inquiry, do I listen to my body?

Do you listen to your body? Do you really attend kind of from the inside-out so you can sense, well, what nourishment? do I need? Do I need more exercise, less exercise? What kind of movement really would be restorative or balancing? Do I need rest? And then the question, do you listen to your heart? Do you listen to your heart and sense, wow, there's some loneliness here, some sadness,

or I need to replenish in some way, or I need quiet. even though I'm not wanting to discipline myself to find some quiet, I need some quiet. Do we listen to our heart? Do we listen to the yearnings? Are you listening to the yearnings of your soul? Some might call soul or spirit. Your deepest aspirations. You know, Rumi says, do you make regular visits to yourself?

Do you listen in deeply to sense? Well, what is it I really, really yearn for? Is it peace? Is it connection? Am I yearning to love without holding back so much? Am I yearning to realize truth to really see reality directly? What's that yearning? And if we're scanning still, how am I listening with others?

You might just send someone your family or a friend. Do I seek to understand? Is there that inquiry? Well, what's it like? being you? Am I curious? Do we wonder what matters to another person? Do we listen to sense how our words and actions are impacting someone else? So part of what we're exploring together is just to honestly look at listening as this precious capacity we can cultivate and without judging ourselves just sense, okay, so this is the habits that I'm in. If you're eye,

are closed, please feel free to open. And I found that if we investigate, we'll notice that in the places where there's a lack of listening, whether it's to our own bodies or to the person we're living with, there's going to be a sense of distance, a lack of aliveness, and often we won't be tending to the needs that are here. We'll miss something. Often it'll lead to conflict, dividedness, when we're not. really attuning when we're not paying attention. One story, this is illustrative of a woman,

she's cooking eggs in the kitchen when her husband comes running in and he gasps in horror. Be careful, be careful, put in more butter. Oh my gosh, what are you doing? That's why I startled. He goes on, you're cooking too many at once, too many. Turn them, turn them. If you don't turn them quickly, turn them quickly, not that quickly. They need to cook some. Don't you know how to cook eggs? And she says, what's wrong with you? Of course I need a cook eggs. Well, he says, I just wanted you to know what it feels like when I'm driving with you in the car. So that's a classic one. But we know it. We know the interpersonal divides and we know what happens when there's not listening, not attuning on the societal level. So it's helpful and it's hope-giving to remember that

we really do have as part of our wiring, our most recently evolved brain, we have the capacity to listen deeply, to take in others to really feel with and to understand and to feel compassion. It's really our potential. And we also know that our primitive brain, our survival brain, runs interference daily every day for most of us, that in some way, Stress makes us contract and it cuts off that listening. So here's the thing. If you can, if you want to commit to deep listening and you can become mindful of when that's happening, you can be in a conversation and get it, okay, there's stress, I'm right

now caught in wanting something or fearing something and I'm not paying attention. If you can catch that, you can actually shift your patterning in a way that. it's profoundly healing. So that's where we're going to pay attention right now, becoming aware of how we cut off from listening. And it happens whenever there's any agenda of wanting something or fearing something. That's the lens that's really, really helpful. That if there's some agenda when you're with somebody where you're wanting something, we'll start with that, it narrows the aperture of your attention, so you're not receptive. My favorite classic example is, if a pickpocket sees a saint, they see the saint's pocket, right? And we know that. So,

this is, you know, you're wanting and you just focus on what you're really wanting and you don't see what's really there. And science shows us how this works. Many are familiar with Heisenberg-observer effect, which goes like this. It basically says, we can't can't see reality as it is because the very active observing distorts and this is because the observer or the listener unless they're mindful is distorting what they're seeing by our wants and fears. So that's the deal that what we hear is distorted by the filters of what we fear or want or what we're listening for. Distortion. A grandma shared about a three-year-old, three-year-old totally loves finger painting, okay? And then he was saying the Lord's Prayer

for the family. And here's how he said the Lord's Prayer. He said, our father who does art in heaven, Harold is his name. Amen. Our Father who does art in heaven. So we have our distortions based on what we want, fear or familiar with. And in conversation, your wants will affect how open the aperture is. So consider this. And I'm going to just invite you to send somebody you had a recent conversation with. Did you want that person to experience you in a certain way? In other words, did you want them to think of you as helpful, as intelligent, as caring, as capable, as interesting? I mean, it's so interesting to me that if I think of conversations, most of the time there's some agenda of wanting the other person to have a certain

impression of me. That closes the aperture some. Did you want the person to think you were a good listener? Still, it closes it some. Do you want the person's approval? Did you want the conversation to go in a particular direction, to get to a certain conclusion? Did you want to prove something? Did you want to get something from the person? Did you want to be right, that's such a big one. Did you want to fix the person? So I'm just giving you examples, but whenever there's wanting and there so often is, it tightens us. Now sometimes the wanting that will be pulling us from presence doesn't have anything to do with the person we're with. It's just, it may be that we're wanting to get back to work or we're wanting to get something

to eat. Some of you might know that William James, who I think was about 120 years ago, he wrote this, he described us as in a ceaseless frenzy of always thinking we should be doing something else. So again, let's pause. And again, just to sense a recent conversation with somebody, give you a little time to bring someone to mind. And you might be thinking, well, this is COVID and I'm not seeing anybody and everything is by email and so there might not not have been a conversation, but bring somebody to mind that you've had a conversation with. And just notice if you had a wanting agenda to in some way impress, to be experienced in a certain way. And also notice how much there might have been pure listening with no agenda, just openness,

seeking to understand, to connect. Now, just like wanting, we also have a lot of fear and aversion. And when that's part of the agenda, protecting ourselves, we're not able to offer a listening presence either. We kind of pull away when we feel threatened by what the other person's saying. There's a, I read somewhere, the four words that will make men run for the hells, we need to talk. This is another cartoon I saw. But we all know it, that when we feel threatened or hurt or offended, we can't attend. I mean, think of the most recent time that you receive criticism, that you felt judged or blamed. Like, it doesn't feel good. How well do we continue with a receptive open presence when somebody else is judgmental? Or how much can we

keep listening openly when another person disagrees with us? And this is such a big one now for so many when people have different political views, is anybody listening? I love the saying that the world is divided into those who think they're right. And that's the whole saying. When there's any threat to our rightness, we can't hear. So when aversion arises, instead of listening, we try to control the experience and get away from the aversion. And we might drift off internally or we might be defensive. we might be aggressive. Postmaster Edgar Day had a very interesting approach. When he encountered

a long-winded talker, his strategy was he would hang up while he was speaking as a way to get away from the experience. Other Carol Matto writes, The dying process begins the minute you are born, but it accelerates during dinner parties. So you get the idea that when we're aversive in some way, it hijacks listening. And one of the big things that happens and it's not even to do with the person we're with is just the feeling we don't have enough time. And that hijacks it, that fear hijacks listening. So again friends, inviting you to reflect a recent conversation and the inquiry here is

How much did aversion close the aperture? Whether you felt judgment or you felt bored or intimidated or anxious about something else, how much did that get in the way? And you can keep reflecting if you'd like. I want to name one more basic fear that gets in the way of listening. And it's the fear of not being here. So let's slow down for this one because it's really, this is very, it's sometimes subtle, but it's very, very real and deep, that listening requires putting aside the selfing,

all the thoughts that keep us having a solid sense of a self that give us ground. And when we get quiet and we put down our own thoughts and concerns and so on and just open to another person, it feels uncomfortable, unfamiliar, we feel unprepared, undefended, there's a sense that no one's here. We don't know who we are when we're not planning our response. I love the way Fran Leibowitz put it. She says, the opposite of talking isn't listening. The opposite of talking is waiting.

And isn't that familiar that instead of listening to understand, we listen to reply? That's where our energy goes. There's this really strong tendency to want to assert a self who knows something. I'm spending a little time on this. So the way is our limbic agenda of wanting and fearing and sustaining a self creates interference. Because if you can bring to mind a few people that you want to deepen your listening with and notice, okay, with that person, here's how my listening gets hijacked. You will be more able in the moment to choose to stay present. If we can bring it into consciousness, we can actually make a shift. It takes courage.

I like the way Krista Tippett puts it. She says, to listen deeply, we have to have a willingness to be surprised. Because we're putting down all our expectations and our controlling. Mark Nippo, the poet, says it this way. He says, to listen is to lean in. softly with a willingness to be changed by what we hear. I want to say that again because that for me is so, it just kind of says it so beautifully. To listen is to lean in softly with a willingness to be changed by what we hear. Let's now turn to how we train ourselves, how we train ourselves to listen. And I'm going to kind of go to through some basic steps and give you an example and then invite you to practice a little,

we'll do it together in your mind's eye with someone in your life. The training, like anything else, it takes the 10,000 hours plus of deliberate practice because it's really reworking our old habits of trying to control things. And there are three steps. If you're stressed, there are three steps that you'll have to take. if you want to actually show up in a conversation and deepen your listening. And the first is to set your intention to do so. And if part of us being together is you leave and say, okay, it's my intention to deepen

listening and here's a person I want to practice with. So you're really ahead of time like setting that aspiration, you'll be much more inclined to be awake in that situation. So that's the first one, set your intention. It's basically the intention, for me it's can I listen to understand and to connect. The second is to know you're going to keep having to do inner listening as you're listening to another so that you can see what we've been describing, the kind of reactivity that shows up, the judgments, the fears, the self-criticisms, the wants and the tugs and the

urge to fix and you just kind of have to keep on being willing to listen inwardly and sense what's going on with real kindness, real presence. So that's part two. So we set the intention. We know when we're with others there's also some inner listening going on so we know what's happening. And then the third, offering a listening presence to others, we need to support that somehow because we get tugged around so much. Just the way. in a sitting meditation, you might set the anchor with the breath because you know you're going to get caught in thoughts and it's a way to come back right here. You can use your breath and your body when you're listening to others. I sometimes just feel my hands tingling as

I'm talking, I'll feel my breath and my hands tingling and it'll keep me here knowing, okay, right now my only job is to listen. Breathe, feel the fingers and hands tingling, and listen. Breathe, hands, listen. So find an anchor that works for you, some way of coming back into presence so you don't get lost in your thoughts. And then the other piece that I find really helpful is the wise inner coach that just kind of reminds us. And you might find some reminders that really help you, like an inner whisper that says, okay, what's happening here? There's time. That's a really valuable reminder just to say there's time because so often we think there's not enough time in our life. There's time. I sometimes will say, well,

what's beyond the words? You know, can I hear who this person is? Finding little phrases, little coaching phrases will keep you anchored in the moment and deepen your attention. Let me share a story a woman shared with me. She had done, you know, she had done some mindful listening training and she was listening to the podcast. Doing her work on this decided to commit to listening from an awake heart by practicing with her brother. Now, her brother was a professor of economics for decades. And she found him incredibly self-absorbed and opinionated and domineering whenever they were in their family gatherings. And they were just approaching one of their annual gatherings at a beach and she was dreading being with them. So that's why she decided she was going to

practice deep listening with her brother. So she set her intention, you know, for understanding, for connection. And she described it that at first listening was incredibly difficult because her brother either talked incessantly about himself or went on diatribes about child rearing and world affairs and really just took up all the air and no room for conversation. So typically she'd find all sorts of excuses to not be around him. But she remembered her intention and she said her breath was her anchor. And she watched herself. She did that inner listening.

And she just kept on feeling her impatience and frustration that's, sense of the aversion like, I don't exist, that feeling, and kept feeling it and inwardly kept offering care to herself, you know, just it's okay, it's okay. So that was important. She was staying intimate with her own experience, acknowledging her aversion, not pretending it wasn't there, not bypassing it. And that made it possible to listen a little bit more with him. And she coached herself. You know, she used the there's time because she just felt like I'd much rather be with my kids right now on the beach. Or, you know, she'd ask questions, can I hear who he is? And as she listened, she started to really feel her brother's, like a very young person,

need for attention, to feel like he mattered, to in some way be confirmed or affirmed as intelligent and interesting. And she could feel under that as she listened, the insecurity that was there. And actually, as she led in that pain, as she felt this kind of young, insecure place in him, it softened her heart and her presence deepened. She just sat with him. She'd listened to him. They went for walks on the beach. One day, after a few days of her listening like that, on a walk, he confessed to her. her. He said he was really agitated and hurt because right before break, he had received the students' course feedback at his college. And he got some feedback that he was not only not interesting,

but he was a talking head. And compared to the other more popular professors, you know, he was way down on the list. And this just really, it just hit him so hard. And she was very present listening to And then he said something she never expected. He looked at her and said, you know, I'm not the person I want to be. And he, you know, his eyes were wet. And so she asked the natural question, well, who do you want to be? And he said, someone who can connect and engage and interest these young people and the challenges of our world and someone who can bring them alive. And they started talking about what had gotten in the way and how he could experientially engage students, how we could ask them questions, and with real interest, draw them forward, draw

forward their creativity and intelligence rather than shoving his at them. The day they left, he really expressed gratitude. He said, you know, I needed you, you've been so here for me. You help me reconnect to purpose. So what did she done? You know, she set her intention for understanding. She was very very with herself and what she was coming up in her. And she just stuck with it, you know, listening presence. There's a metaphor I love. This comes to my mind a lot about the power of listening. That if you just consider it that we have this creative spirit, all of us have this love and wisdom in us and it kind of can emerge like a fountain and it's all coming from the same source of awareness. But when we haven't been listened to, that creative wise expression

doesn't come forward. It's like our fountain dies. It trivels up. And then when we are listened to, it starts flowing again. And as it flows, it can start expressing the truth of our human vulnerability. like this woman's brother, and in time the depth of our goodness or deep intentions, it's a real human need to have spaces where we're listened to, a really deep human need. So we're going to practice a little, and then we're going to open this to questions. Just to remind you in terms of the questions, if you're on Zoom, feel free to put your questions on chat now in the next few minutes, any time. and what we're really exploring in this class and there's going to be part two because I barely

touched on, I've got so much more that I wanted to walk through with you, but the power of consciously rededicating to listening. I know in my life when I go through my, okay, this is a season where I really want to pay attention to this, my relationships become an adventure, much more interesting because I'm just much more consciously there and that brings it alive. It doesn't matter who I'm with. More heart, more connection. So I invite you to explore that and right now we'll just let you explore it as you bring to mind one person that you would like to listen more deeply to. So wherever you are, if you need to adjust your posture, please do and then come into stillness.

we'll just do a little investigating and setting you in the direction of deepening listening with this person. You might ask yourself to begin with what is between me and listening with an awake heart, what's stopping me? And maybe you notice that when you're with this person, the wanting agenda gets in the way, you're wanting to get approval or get them to do something your way. way or to experience you in a certain way. Or maybe there's the aversive side of it that there's a difference, there's a hierarchy, a difference

of power, of inferior or superior, and that gets in the way. Or there's a fear of being judged. Whatever it is, just notice what gets in the way. And you might notice how do you control things. instead of listening, do you distract into your own thoughts? Do you try to steer the conversation? Do you ignore? Do you plan your response?

And as we've been talking about the steps for deepening, you might sense your intention to bring more into awareness what's going on around listening with this person to be more aware. and you might sense your intention to deepen your understanding, to connect, to listen with an awake heart, and feel it as a sincere, earnest kind of prayer, aspiration. And then you might imagine a situation coming up when you might be in conversation. And just imagine anchoring maybe with your breath or with your body.

imagine that you're listening and maybe something gets stirred up and that you really do pay attention inwardly, you give yourself some care and presence inwardly as that's happening. Imagine as you open your attention to the other in a deeper way that you coach yourself a little. You know, what's behind the words? What does this person really need for me? What do they want me to know? And as you come right back into this moment, this present moment, just feel that willingness, that intention to lean in a bit softly with a willingness to be changed by what you hear, that courage to listen and feel yourself right here, right now. I'll share one poem to close this portion and then we'll open it to questions. This is by John

fox. When someone deeply listens to you, it is like holding out a dented cup you've had since childhood and watching it fill up with cold, fresh water. When it balances on top of the brim, you are understood. When it overflows and touches your skin, you are loved. When someone deeply listens to you, the room where you stay starts a new life and the place where you wrote your first poem begins to glow in your mind's eye. It's as if gold has been discovered. When someone deeply listens to your bare feet are on the earth and a beloved land that seemed distant is now at home within you. Okay friends so we're going to do a little bit of a shifting here and Shannon who is

moderating for us is going to give a few different instructions and then we're going to open it to your questions. Thank you, Tara. Just a few quick notes before we get started. If your question is selected, the moderator will read your question aloud and unmute your microphone. If your camera is off, please turn it on and say hello. When you speak, it will then bring you on to the screen so Tara can see you.

And then once your dialogue has finished, a moderator will then re-meat your microphone. To get started, we're going to begin with a question from Angie this evening. Angie asked, how do we balance the importance of listening to others with our own need to be listened to? And if we are not getting this from the person we are listening to. Hello. Hey, hi, Angie. Hello. I can't believe you picked me.

Yeah, no, I'm glad you asked that question. I have a feeling you're not alone. Maybe say a little more what makes you ask it. I guess I just feel like, well, I was kind of saying in the chat that I feel like I'm often the listener in situations. Like I'm a good listener and people, you know, share things with me. But I feel like I don't have a lot of people that I can talk to who I really really. feel, understand me. And so I feel alone.

So I'm just not sure how do we balance that out. Yeah. So when you meditate, do you feel like you listen inwardly pretty well? I don't meditate as much as I probably should. So probably not enough. So and we all, I mean, most people feel that way. you know, most of us feel like, you know, it's kind of, it's like the elephant in the room that we're not really meditating enough. So, but more I was asking that because your inquiry

so poignant. I think there's a lot of people that are the ones that other people have to listen to. And there's a lot of people that are the listen, you know, we go into our roles. And it's ironic, but it doesn't mean that you can still, if you listen, if you listen, in a, not to be a good person, but you listen in a way that truly involves presence, where you're listening inwardly and listening outwardly. It's actually a completely nourishing when-win. But I have this feeling you're skipping the inner part. That's why I'm bringing it up.

So a few things. The first is that when you are listening to another, notice what's going on in you, including maybe the resentment like, you know, what about me? And including a feeling of maybe aversiveness like maybe I'm being taken advantage of or, you know, not cared about any of those things. And both in the midst of listening and also on the side and your own make some time to meditate, pay attention to that part as if you're literally offering your listening to an inner part of you that need your attention.

I would really let that be at the center of your practice. Like, okay, I'm going to listen right now to my own inner being. Not to stop listening to others, though, because it's not like you lose by listening to them. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, it's interesting because my job is I'm a counselor, so I do a lot of listening with my clients too. I think really what is underneath it too is just this feeling of, you know, I've always had this feeling of being really alone and feeling like I don't have like a lot of friends, like real friends. So there's that piece of feeling like not belonging, I think.

I hear you. And so part of this is what is the inquiry of, you know, where would it be a place you might expand a little bit? and engage so that you're in mutual listening. Like, where is that possible? Where could you ask for that? Where might that be? So this is like three levels. One is inner listening.

One is to go on, because you clearly have a capacity to hold a space for others, and it's beautiful, and it's something to cherish. And to seek out that, seek that out. Yeah, and thank you. You're asking a really important, question. Thank you so much, Tara. Thank you. Bless you, dear. Be well. Our next question is going to be from Mitzah, and please forgive me if I'm saying your name

correctly. How do you listen deeply to that other person who is repeatedly telling you his story over and over, being self-centered and demanding attention and not being receptive to you? Hey, hi there. Yay. Thank you. you. Yeah. Yeah. So what I'm hearing, NHTSA, is that right? Yes. Great. So what I'm hearing is that you're in a relationship where you're just constantly hearing the same story coming from somebody and it's very self-centered and there's no mutuality there. And say a little more about a little more just to tune me in. Yes. Well, actually I resonated with the story that you, shared with us about the brother and sister.

Yeah. I have a brother that I'm actually helping him to deal with his own depression and his frustrations in life as he ages. And we have been meditating actually every week because I have, yeah, I have been, you know, I offered him the opportunity to meditate and to learn how to meditate. And it's been an interesting experience for me how to do it. it, you know, and actually I heard your online, how to be a good meditation teacher. I'm preparing for that.

But I feel very frustrated because he keeps all the time being self-centered about retelling the story of frustration. And I keep listening and listening, but it's so hard for me to hear it again that sometimes I feel a little bit despair. I actually, I confront him, judging him, like requesting him to stop retelling the story again. I don't know if I am doing that correctly or still give some time to retelling the story and then how to manage that. I hear your question and I'm really getting it that there's a deep inquiry. How long does it serve to hold a space when somebody is just repeating a pattern over and over and over and over again? Is that right?

Yes. Yeah. Here's what I would encourage because it takes a lot of patience because he's obviously really a wounded person and he's caught in something and he doesn't want to be there. Nobody wants to be in. And you can't fix him. You can explore what it would mean to listen and love him more while he's speaking, just to love him. But at first you're going to have to take care of the part of you. that's frustrated and it's very, it can not be very gratifying. You know, you just feel like you're just listening to a broken record. So you need to take care of yourself, but make it part of your practice to say, can I hold my own being in compassion? And then how pure can I bring just a tenderness, like seeing the suffering behind that story and just see. It may be that it doesn't work for your body, heart, and mind to keep holding the space for too long.

But explore what would happen if you first deepened and just loved him. Just loved him. That takes getting to that loving place. So first tend to yourself. And by the way, when I say do it while the conversation is happening, we need to do it on the sidelines also. because you're offering a lot and it can bring up the places in our own lives where we had deficits. Yeah. Okay.

Thank you. I hope that's helpful. Yes, I keep trying because I love him dearly, so I'll keep trying. That's what I'm picking up that you do love him. Yes. So tell yourself that. Say, just for the sake of love, let's see how much I can just simply just love him right now. Thank you.

Your blessings. Thank you. Yeah. Our next question is from Michael. I seem to be good at listening to everybody else but myself. How can I become better at listening to myself, my own inner voice? Okay. Hi there.

Hey, hi, Michael. Hi. Thank you for taking my question. Well, I think it's a question that a lot of us are wondering about, is that we get outward focused and how to listen inwardly. So tell me what you're discovering so far. I discover that I tend to deflect attention away from myself when I try to tune inwardly into my own voice. I think I'm very good at listening to other people and hearing what's going on, maybe a layer or two beneath what they're saying. But then when it comes to asking myself questions about, well, what do I really want or what do I really need in this moment or at a bigger level, like thinking about plans for my life or the way forward, then I can't seem to hear that voice. And I immediately start to shut down or distract myself with other, well, with distractions. tell me what makes this important to you what makes inner listening important and take your time i mean

what really makes this important i think one reason it's important for me is i'm looking for answers inside myself and having a hard time finding them or hearing what those answers might be And what would be like example of what you're searching about right now? Well, one big question right now is relates to just life direction and where I want to go, not just career-wise, but geographically, spiritually, what would bring me the most meaning? Am I really listening to myself and being true to myself by doing what I'm doing now, where I'm doing it, or it doesn't feel right. So I ask myself this question, well, where should I be and what should I be doing? But then I can't get to that answer or I can't

hear that answer because I have a hard time listening to myself. When you are feeling something's meaningful, when you feel a sense like, oh, this is something that matters in a moment. What's usually going on? When do you feel a sense of meaning and purpose? Usually it's in the small things for me, whether it's practicing music, which is a hobby of mine, or reading or spending time with my dog. I can feel those brief moments of, this is the right thing to be doing.

And I'm so glad I'm able to do this, be outside on a beautiful day with my dog, or being able to just make music. It's the bigger things, I guess, like, what should I do with my life? Where it becomes a lot harder to listen to. So let's stay slow a little bit here. So if you're at the end of your life looking back

and you're going to say, what would make today a day that you'd feel really mattered? What are the elements of today? it would be that you were outside in beauty or that you're played with your pop or practiced music. Those are the things. Yeah, I think that those are certainly elements of it. Yeah. I think that question is a good focusing question for me that I just haven't asked myself enough.

I'm asking you questions on purpose. We're actually doing the thing you don't do. which is the inquiry. I'm honoring the way you're doing it because what you've actually landed on, you know, so many people have these grand ideas about their life, but they're not really connected with the little moments

that really make life life, you know? And if you ask yourself, well, at the end of my life, if I was looking back, what would matter right now? Like if I'm asking myself, part of it is that I'm actually real with you right now, that I'm not mechanical, that there's actual authentic, here we are. And unlike you, my dog, if I play with my dog and go for a walk by the river and I can be real with you, it doesn't really matter too much what my formal job is or what I'm doing with my life or where I'm living. Do you see what I'm saying?

Right, right. Yeah, it's definitely in the small things. So what I want to encourage you in your inquiry is to stay grounded in the small things. They will lend insights into what some bigger trajectories or patterns might be useful. But that doesn't really matter so much. It matters that each day, if you are at the end of your day looking back, you said, yeah, I live today. I touched some moments of meaning. that matters a whole lot more than where you end up choosing to live, our career or anything.

Yeah, that's absolutely true. And a very beautiful reminder. Thank you very much for that. Thank you for being with us. Really nice to be with you. Thank you, likewise. Yeah, be well. Thank you. Thank you, Shannon. We're going to close because I just looked at the time. Let me first of all ask you all to be on Gala. a review if you're not already. And we can just do a very short closing for all that are listening from whatever place you're in to, just as we did now, as we were exploring together, start inward. Just close your eyes or let your gaze be downcast. And just as Michael and I were doing,

just sense inside, sense how it is right now. Listen to it. Listen to it. Listen to you. Listen to you. Listen to your heart. In the same way you might offer listening to another that's deep listening, listen with unconditional tenderness. Invite your heart. Invite your heart to let you know what it wants you to know right now, how life is for you this moment. So you're in an intimate, real listening connection inwardly. And then you can widen the attention and again. again, remind yourself of somebody you'd like to be listening to more deeply. And you might listen to these words from Ticknacht Han, the Zen Master, he says, deep listening is the kind of listening that can help relieve the suffering of another person.

You can call it compassionate listening. You listen with only one purpose to help him or her empty their heart. if they say things that are full of wrong perceptions, full of bitterness, you're still capable of continuing to listen with compassion because you know that listening like that, you give the person a chance to suffer less. If you want them to correct their perception, you wait for another time. For now, you don't interrupt. You don't argue. If you do, they lose their chance. You just listen with compassion and help them to suffer less. Time like this can bring transfer and healing. So we widen and sense another person and it may be you're deepening, listening,

not just to relieve their suffering, but to really deepen your relationship. And it's quite natural that you would be also asking to be listened to at times. But for now, just to sense the intention, the adventure really, of can I just be there? Can I just be there? Can I, I keep attuned to what's going on inside me and open my heart. Like the bodhisattv of compassion, just offer that presence. Even a little, even for a few minutes. Is that possible? And then we widen it and begin to think of our world and know that if we can,

even for a few minutes, with someone, in our close-in circles, practice this open-hearted, compassionate presence, that can ripple out. That's what can begin to evolve our human hearts in a way that can bridge the differences in our world. So we close and we're on gallery view and you might open your eyes and sense as you look and see others and you can do it without feeling self-conscious. nobody knows who you're looking at, which I always like. And you can just see each other and sense the goodness, the intention, the good hearts, the wisdom, and sense collectively,

and this is for all of us, what is possible of each of us in the days and weeks to come, just listen a little bit more, just to sense that. you might offer each other your blessings, your namestays. And if you want to unmute and say farewell and namaste to each other, please feel free. And thank you so much for being part of this. I hope you join the next week. Okay, blessings. For more talks and meditations, and to learn about my schedule or join my email list,

please visit tarabrock.com.