Tara Brach - The Power of Deep Listening – Part 2

Episode Date: March 30, 2023

The Power of Deep Listening – Part 2 - 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. Namaste, friends, and welcome. Thanks so much for joining us. We'll be reflecting in this talk on the theme of deep listening, and this is the second of a two-part series. No problem if you miss the first, you can always listen to it, that they each will stand on their own. So we've been looking at how we each flourish,

both by learning to listen, truly listening, and of course by being listened to, how much it matters to our heart, to our spirit. So I happened upon a cartoon. This is of a man and a woman on their first date, and his thought bubble is, I can't think of anything to say. She must think of a total bore.

and hers is a man who actually listens to me. I think I'm in love. You know, when we're in social situations, we can forget about how much others really want to be taken in, listened to, attended to, understood. And we also lose sight of our own needs to be listened to, how much that matters to us. And maybe our deepest forgetting is how often we don't listen inwardly. We really don't often reconnect with ourselves when we most need to. So our inquiry really is how to awaken a very pure listening presence. And there's a wise hint from the Zen tradition that says the quieter you become, the more you're able to hear. So keep that in mind, if we want to train in listening, we need to become aware of the trance,

the thinking trance that we're usually caught in. Some of you might have heard this from Winnie the Pooh, A.A. Mellon, when he says, if the person you are talking to doesn't appear to be listening, be patient. It may simply be that he has a small piece of fluff in his ear. So hence our meditation training, removing fluff. And I hope this feels familiar that when we practice meditation, we notice when we're distracted, when we're often thoughts, and then the training is to come back, just to come back right here and open to what's happening. So I like this considering our training as removing the fluff. And it really is that incestive. and inner dialogue, you know, the preoccupations. So we are unclogging ourselves in a way.

While in this talk the emphasis will be on listening to each other, listening is the essential capacity that reveals all of our relatedness to life, to the sacred. You know, if you've listened deeply, you know this, that in those moments you can really discover connectedness, a true communion with whatever you're listening to. If you're listening to the sound of a stream, or maybe to birds, or to another person's words, and you're listening deeply. A woman was introducing meditation in a Montessori school, the seven to 11-year-olds. And the way she did it was by telling them she was going to strike a gong. and then asking them to be interested in watching and following the sound.

And she said, notice where it goes. If you follow and you pay attention, you might get closer to God, to spirit. And so the child later told his mother, one child told his mother about this experience and said to his mother, well, when I watched and listened to where sound went, I didn't get closer to God, I was God. Let's just pause for a moment here and reflect, perhaps explore just listening. And I invite you wherever you are to let it be a real pause and to open up your attention to sound, to come into a state of listening, letting the sounds wash through, open, receptive, including the sounds in the room, listening into the space that's here.

And in a few moments, listening to and following the sound of the gong. Continuing in the quietness for a moment. So you're listening with your whole awareness. Be the silence that's listening. Yes, you might take a few little breaths. If your eyes were closed, open them. If you choose, you can always listen with your eyes closed too. So what does it mean to bring a true listening presence into our relationships?

You know, what happens when we try? And maybe for those that were listening last week you resolved this week that you're going to listen more deeply with others. Or maybe at some other time in your life you've done that on purpose. purpose. And, you know, it's often not until we're intentional about it that we actually realize how difficult listening really is. When we're with other people, we start finding that our own wants and fears are right there. There's a kind of self-consciousness. And often we go on autopilot because of that tension. And we kind of lock into our regular patterns of either presenting and filling in the silence or defending or in some way inserting ourselves rather than listening.

And of course, if there's any really strong charge, if we're feeling threatened or we have some craving or desire or attachment, real uncomfortable, it's even harder to have a listening presence. It's also difficult when we're listening to someone and they're talking about something we don't understand. We tend to either drift or, and this is even more distancing, we'll start making assumptions about what they're saying and not really deepen our attention or even ask questions. A story for you. A Baptist pastor was presenting a children's sermon. And during the sermon, he asked the children if they knew what the rich. resurrection was. So one little boy raised his hand, and the pastor called on him, and the little boy

said, I know that if you have a resurrection that lasts more than four hours, you're supposed to call the doctor, assuming we know. Okay, friends, so let's explore together now some of the most regular questions and challenges that we all encounter. And I'm drawing these from, questions, people, some were asked last week and some I've received over time during our satsung, our Saturday gathering, some on Facebook. So here are some of the questions. And one of the most basic is that I mean to listen, but then I forget when I'm actually in the situation. So how do I remember to listen? And what I found is that listening only becomes a habit if I'm intentional. Like if I, on that day, am intending to listen to that person. So, first of all,

it matters underneath that, that I care, that I really know that listening makes a difference, that my heart really wants to. And then, so I just have to have it as a real central practice in my life. And it's very hard if I enter the day and say, okay, I'm going to really listen. to everybody today. So part of training is actually planning ahead and maybe practicing just with a couple of people that you're engaged with more regularly. I know for me it helps if on the morning that I'm going to let's say be talking to one of those people to very explicitly imagine being with them and imagine that I'm going to be listening. So, choose. a head and it also helps to ahead of time choose an anchor for presence. For instance, okay,

I'm going to listen and I'm going to feel my breath or I'm going to listen and feel the palms of my hands or I'm going to listen and I'm going to look at their eyes and notice the color of their eyes. That's something that helps me if I'm with a person. But these are ways of coming out of trance so that you know if you get distracted, if there's flogers, fluff in your ears that you can go, oh yeah, I'm listening and come back and feel your breath or feel your hands. It also helps to choose ahead of time some self-coaching phrases. Like just simply say to yourself, okay, what's happening right now?

Or maybe my friend is talking. Or okay, I'm being quiet. Or there's time. There's time. or what's beyond the words? Can I hear who this person is? So, coaching phrases that really bring you more fully there. So right before you're in a conversation, remind yourself of your intention. May I really listen? May I seek to understand? May there be connection? Really sincerely to be curious and non-judging and generous with your attention and set your anchor and then

watch out for when you're in the situation for the ways that you might leave, like rehearsing what you're going to say next or that sense of waiting for the person to be finished or the distractions are judgment. And when that happens, simply just come back. Again, use your breath, come back. And if the distraction are the way that you leave is because you're really triggered by something that's going on, then that's, that lets you know that you need to bring a kind attention inwardly to what's going on, just to notice it, to give yourself so compassion. And in that way, you can then reenter more fully there. So, however it goes, and this is the last tip on remembering to listen, forgive yourself

and forgive the other person. We spend so much of our time with each other where we're not really fully there that we're not going to change that habit by judging ourselves. It's by being forgiving. Okay, so that was the first question I wanted to address. The second one is if someone, and this has come up before, says, I want to listen, but the other person isn't open with me. They're being superficial or complaining or repeating their story. So what do we do, you know, if the other person isn't really coming from a more real place?

It kind of reminds me of that Sylvia cartoon. Some of you might remember. Sylvie is in the guise of a fortune teller and a woman's talking to her and saying, you know, my husband won't talk about his feelings. Sylvia kind of mumbles under her breath, what else is new. But then she looks into her crystal ball and she says, in 2021 men will start talking about their feelings. Within moments, women will be sorry.

So here we are. And we're with somebody who is not expressing. We're trying to listen and it often happens that people aren't coming from a very deep or sincere place and so we start judging and sometimes our intention is very benign. You know, I really am looking for deeper contact but there's still an agenda which is I want you to be more open with me. Any agenda gets in the way. I'll tell you a story of a friend was reading books about listening to your teen and she desperately wanted to turn around in a strange relationship with her daughter and have her daughter share her troubles and be there

and really listen. And she tried to set up these conversations and her daughter was totally disinterested and she felt really shut out and it felt wounded. And increasingly she'd approach her daughter with this fear of being rebuffed, you know, that her daughter was going to push her away and say, you know, don't want to talk about it. So her primary work was first inner listening to connect with her own hurt about feeling pushed away, to bring compassion to that. That's what she had to do. She had a kind of call on her higher self and just remind herself, trust that you love her, just love her. Just send her meta, that's loving kindness. and when you're talking to her, just feel your love and let it be however it is.

Trust that. That loving her is more important than having a real conversation. And that actually released her expectation that she was going to be this great listener and her daughter was going to be forthcoming. There was more space. She lightened up. And there was a little bit more of a trickle sharing, but now her daughter is coming from college and they're really connected and she talks up a storm. So just keep in mind

your own expectation about wanting the other person to be open and authentic to make your good listening work because that again it's an agenda. Okay, another question that people ask is it's hard for me to listen because I'm just chronically anxious and have a sense that there's not enough time. And I wonder how many of you have noticed how easily it is we get tugged by that sense of I should be doing something else and then we're not really listening. And especially when we're stressed, it's really difficult to sustain attention and listen. One friend of mine said that multitasking is possible, multi-focus is not.

and I suspect that many, I'll confess that I have, maybe once or twice have been on the phone and are Zooming, but also done some email. Or online shopping, has anybody ever done that while you're on the phone? You know, it's good that we're not in person because I could ask for a hand-raise on this and it's a hard one to confess. but sadly it does become our way of operation to split our attention and we know it so that we're not there offering our full heart. A story that really touched me was in tattoos on the heart written by Gregory Boyle who's a Jesuit priest and he works with Latino gang members in Los Angeles,

some of the most violent parts of Los Angeles. He describes being in his office and he's between morning mass and he's about to do a baptism and he's running late. He's got like seven minutes. And a woman walks in his room. He's got pretty much of a flow people from the streets are in and out. And this woman, her name's Carmen, is a heroin addict and a gang member, an occasional prostitute. as he describes her, often seen defiantly storming down the street, usually shouting at someone. And she seats herself in his office, and he's glancing at the clock.

And this is how he describes what happens. He says, this is how she starts in. I need help. She launches right in, brash and something of a no-shit sister. Oh, she says, I've been to about 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 multitasked, and her inspection of the place doesn't derail her stream of consciousness rambling.

The family will arrive for the baptism in five minutes. I went to Catholic school all my life. Fact, I graduated from high school even. Fact, right after graduation, is when I started to use heroin. Carmen enters some kind of trance at this point. Her speech slows to deliberate and halting. And I have been trying to stop since the moment I began. Then I watch as Carmen telts her head back until it meets the wall. She stares 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. Suddenly, her shame meets mine. For when Carmen walked through the door, I had mistaken her for an interruption. I share this because, you know, if most of us were at the end of our life looking back at today and saw ourselves in conversation or with a loved one, what would matter was presence, was connection. How we live today is how we live our life. And I know for myself how often I turn someone into an unreal other because I am perceiving as an interruption. You know, we're so often in this trance of thinking we're We should be somewhere else that there isn't enough time and then we kind of race over

the surface to the finish line, not arrive. Now of course, I just want to name and you might be thinking this, we are often busy. And that's natural. It's fine to choose to not talk and not be in that kind of a deeper listening. It's fine to set boundaries and all that. But if we are choosing to talk to someone to acknowledge. the pull internally and re-chews to be there. I've seen myself so often working and in the middle of writing a talk, let's say,

and then I have to stop for a scheduled call and being on that call, but really wanting to get back to my work. And I'm just learning more and more how important is to let that be a flag, not to write off the conversation in some way, but to inwardly listen and acknowledge, okay, there's anxiety in my body. I'm anxious about time and to offer some kindness to myself. It's okay. It's okay. And then to remember that this matters, this conversation.

Now, I sometimes do walk around on the conversation watering the plants. That's my multitasking, but I often announce it, you know, just in case people think I'm peeing. Maybe I announce it even if I am peeing. I don't know. But I'm really bringing this up because we all are stressed and it's really important to acknowledge it and then see if because we care, we can still show up. Because we care, we can still show up. There's another story. This is Aria Mountain Dancer. These are her words. She says at the end of a very long day, a small, thin woman in an oversized park, it introduced herself as Isabel. Can I do this meditation on my own? She asked.

Yes, I said, I'm sure you can, although many people find it easier to establish a meditation practice with the help of a group. It's just hard to keep the discipline up on your own. But what will it give me? What will I get if I do this every day? Her tone took on a whining quality and I felt my irritation rise as she continued. How fast? fast will it work? Will I feel a difference after a week? How will I know if it's working? This is exactly the kind of thing I detested, the quest for the quick fix, the desire for the guaranteed outcomes, the simple answer. Do this and you'll get that. My sons were waiting for me and I wanted to go home. I took a deep breath, looked directly at Isabel and set

my knapsack down on the floor. I tried to slow down my words thinking that maybe if I I spoke slower, I'd feel more patient. Well, I said, meditation is more a process than a goal-oriented activity. It can help you become more aware of what's going on within and around you, and this can help reduce stress. My best advice is to try it and just be patient with yourself. I picked up my bag and started to button my coat. I really did have to leave and I wanted to get out while I was feeling virtuous for not

snapping her head off. But as I started to move away, Isabel suddenly reached out and grabbed my arm with surprising strength. But what I want to know, she said, her voice rising in a crescendo that bordered on real panic, is will it help me find God? If I meditate, well, I have an experience of something or someone out there listening, something really with me. A wave of desperation swept out from her through me and I was surprised to find that my eyes filled with tears. This woman wasn't looking for an easy answer or a guaranteed formula because she was lazy. She didn't want a simple plan because she was unable or unwilling to think critically about what would work. She wanted something she knew would work and work quickly because she was hanging

on by her fingernails. She wanted something that would work in a week because she was afraid she simply wasn't going to make it through months or years. I put my hand gently over Isabelle's work at my arm. It's okay, Isabel. We all feel desperate at times. Nobody does it by themselves. We all need help. Her hand relaxed a little beneath mine and she started to cry. We talked for a while longer. There is no them.

There's only us. When I left, I did not leave. one of them, I said goodbye to one of us, a human being doing the best she can, searching for the home for which all our hearts long. We don't so often give our full attention and put aside all the judgments and just listen. Yet when we do, we create a bridge connecting our inner life to each other. Okay, so now to maybe the most challenging. of the questions and that is somebody asking, it's difficult listening when others are disagreeing, when there's conflict, aversion, when someone else isn't listening.

And this is the big one because if someone else is being critical or if they have a different political view, if they're being manipulative, if somebody's judging us, you know, how How does it feel when somebody's not listening to us? So what happens to listening? We know that the aperture really shuts down. From the New Yorker there's a couple arguing and he's saying, yeah, well the Dalai Lama never had to deal with your whining. We can feel what happens.

So the question that I often get around all of this is, can I take care of myself and still listen. So when somebody is acting in ways that feel critical, feel like they're not listening, aggressive, can I take care of myself and still listen? Now clearly if somebody is violating us, it's not about listening, it's about taking care of ourselves. So this is the domain where somebody is acting out but we're not in real danger but can we still listen? And what I would say is, yes, we can. We can learn to listen, but often not in that moment. We need most of us to be able to pull away and have some minutes or more, sometimes weeks,

whatever, to bring a very wise presence to the part of us that might feel hurt, are vulnerable, are triggered. That's usually the prerequisite to being able to re-engage with more listening. And I love the image of a strong back and a soft front. And this comes from Roshi Joan Halifax. We can be with others and have a soft front. In other words, be open, caring, have a listening presence. If we have a strong back, if we feel connected,

grounded, balanced, safe, connected with ourselves, because then we can set the boundaries we need and yet be real and have our heart open. So this is where the capacity for inner listening and self-compassion are crucial. They're a prerequisite. In other words, you can't, if you're in a relationship with somebody and they trigger you and it's very hard to be listening to them, You can't develop that strong back unless you're taking the time for some inner nurturing, that self-compassion. You can try to do it on the spot, and we'll talk about that, but it's harder. Now, when two people are both intentional about deepening listening, when they're both working

on communicating, you can agree to timeouts and they are a really skillful approach to training ourselves to listen. I've been doing this, Jonathan, my husband, we've been doing it since we met. And like most people, we have times when conflict shuts down our capacity to listen. We get judgmental or defensive. One person's being insensitive and the other's pulling away, whatever it is. So over the years we've caught on that what happens is we get better at knowing when to stop when we just say, okay, let's reconnect on this later.

And then between then and the time we reconnect, that's when we do the inner listening. That timeout really makes a difference. Let's say if I am triggered and I'm angry at him and I am then in that time out, that's when it's safe enough to go underneath my anger and say, okay, what's really going on? And I usually get in touch with some vulnerability where I'm feeling hurt, where I'm feeling not cared about or not understood, not prioritized in some way. And during that time out I can give myself compassion, you know, I can be kind towards my own being and offer some care inwardly. And that allows me to reopen the aperture. I'm still in a time-out

and just imagine what's going on for him. I can imagine it. And then when we're together again and we both have resourced that way, I can name my vulnerability without blaming him and listen and hear about his and there's caring there. We do have a joke between us that goes that the first person who can roll reverse wins. And what that means, roll reverse means see through the other person's eyes, which of course means that we have to have already, you know, taken care of our own vulnerability and then widened, opened so that we can actually listen deeply to the other. It's kind of a lighthearted spiritual competition.

but it's actually has some truth to it that there's some freedom in the moments that we're able to return to really listening. There's some freedom when we have that soft front and that strong back. Now you might be wondering, because this is so often the case, well, what if there's not time for that timeout? You know, you're at work and you can't extricate and there's all sorts of reactivity. and it is harder to come into that resource place of a soft front and a strong back on the spot. So we do it imperfectly and we have to have the heart that can forgive that it's going to be imperfect.

If we're in the midst of a conflict and triggered inwardly we can try to use an anchor to ground ourselves, you know, the breath, feel your feet on the ground, come right here, I'm doing it as I speak. And inwardly we can self-nurture even of just a phrase, you know, like, it's okay, trust your goodness, you know, it's going to be okay. And that will shift us a little. So we're a little more able to be engaged without so much reactivity. But the biggest thing is to be forgiving towards ourselves and the other that we're in a reactive dance. Because, you know, everybody gets triggered into that fight, flight, freeze and then shuts off listening. And we do trigger each other. And the more we can think of it as, if that's happening

with somebody in your life regularly, this is your place to learn. Because, I mean, it's really your opportunity. It's grist for the mill. I think of it, and I love the phrase, feedback, not failure. This is where you're being asked to deepen attention if there's a pattern going on with someone else because there's some habit inside that wants attention. And if you can, on the sidelines, bring self-compassion to where you're triggered, you have so much more choice when you're actually engaged. This is the training. It's not when it's flowing and easy with others. It's really when we hit those bumps. Okay, another question. What if the other person isn't on a path of intentional listening? Let's say your friend or a partner or child's not making the effort.

They're just not, they're not with you in this deep listening. And I'm bringing this up because that's more often the case than not. It's very common. We don't all have the same capacity to listen, our intention around listening, intention around being present. And the truth is, the more someone has been traumatized or wounded, the more someone feels themselves separate, threatened, the harder it is for them to listen. So, because it hurts not to be listened to, because it hurts when someone else isn't with you in this, it's easy to go into blame. You know, you're not trying, you don't care, you're not making the effort to listen and understand. So there's three things that help me to remember.

One I've been pointing to, we all have different conditioning and it's really nobody's fault. that they can't listen. It's harder for some people than others. And I know if I'm blaming, that'll only create more distance. And it shuts down my heart. The second thing is, I know that if I can truly listen anyway, I'm freeing up my heart. There's healing going on. And I also, and this is the third, know and trust that if I can listen to them any, anyway, it fosters connection. It moves us in the trajectory of more connection. Now, as I say this, some of you may be wondering, well, but I'm always the one listening in every situation. I'm the one that listens at work. I'm the one that listens with friends or it's my business to listen. I'm

a therapist. So how do we manage the pain, the loss, maybe the feelings of anger or loneliness, when we feel we're always the one listening, not having others listen to us. While some people might not have the capacity, it's helpful to know that there are people who do. And if we're always in the listening role, it's actually an invitation to take an honest look inside and ask, well, what might be stopping me from taking more space, speaking more fully or more deeply or more at length about my experience. Because what I've seen when I've explored this with others, I find there's often a mistrust.

It kind of goes like this, well, if I'm the focus, others won't care. I won't be of value to them. They won't want to be with me anymore. Or maybe they'll take advantage of what they hear. Or they won't respect or like me. In other words, we're afraid to be more disclosing to be the one that's speaking because we don't trust it'll be a good experience.

And deep down, we're not trusting ourselves that I'm lovable enough to be listened to. Again, if that's the way it weighs out in your life, let it be grist for the mill. You know, a signal, okay, this is a place for self-compassion. And also, if that's your role, always the listener, try to play your edge, really carefully, choosing those you think will be most safe and valuable to explore with, but try to move beyond the habit of always being the one who's listening, to sharing more of yourself. You know, ultimately, what we're exploring is how do we bring our caring alive and relating, you know, which requires both deep listening and honest sharing.

One final area of inquiry that I want to touch on, and it's huge, so I can just touch on it, but that is how learning deep listening can help us really bridge the big divides in our society where humans create and violate unreal others, those who are different racially, different political views, religions, we humans violate other species, and as we know from our climate emergency, we're violating our living earth. How does deep listening help? And I can say that the best efforts I know for societal healing are the ones that bring groups of people together who've been unlocked in conflict, in unreal othering, you know, and offer to those groups the kind of

training and support that helps them to listen to each other. And this is really the essence of the very well-known truth and reconciliation hearings in South Africa, which are now you can find them happening in different forms and places around the world. I remember hearing from one young man in South Africa. He described how he was blinded when a policeman shot him in the face at close range. And he describes after participating in those hearings, he says, I feel what has brought my eyesight back to me is to be able 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. He needed others to listen so he could be more real to them, to himself, and vice versa. Some of us might wonder, what about in the United States right now with this increasing violence and really increasing political divide? It's greater than ever because the information feeding our views has come from increasingly siloed sources. So we're living in conflicting realities.

Deep listening can begin to connect. and it requires real training. And one place this is going on, it really inspired me to read about it. It's this program called Bridging the Gap, and it was piloted last year in 2020 with students participating that came from, one group came from a very liberal arts kind of campus

and the other from a conservative evangelical campus. And the inquiry, can we bring a humble curiosity about why people think the way they think. The basic value is that true cultural heroes are bridge builders. True cultural heroes are bridge builders. And so they, with these students did a full training, how to listen with your whole body,

listen to all that's said and unsaid, how to value being close in with different points of view, how much it enriches us and to stay open and how to find common ground with respect and love. So there was a lot of skill building. They took the time to build trust and understanding. And if you're interested in more, there's a film called Bridging the Gap. You can check it out.

I'm sharing this because I hope you can feel, as I do, the possibility that is here. If we, on purpose, bring our curiosity. and our honesty and our presence to relating if it matters to us. And that's with those that are close in because I don't see how we're going to build bridges in the world out there if there's not more of us dedicated with those that we see daily to really listening. As we deepen practice, it's profoundly enlarging.

And for building bridges with those of difference, it's crucial and we can't do it otherwise. It's really ultimately crucial for the life on our planet. You might listen to the words of the poet Gary Lawless. He says, when the animals come to us asking for our help, will we know what they are saying? When the plants speak to us in their delicate, beautiful language, will we be able to answer them? When the planet herself sings to us in our dreams, will we be able to wake ourselves and act? Listening reconnects. We realize the animals and the plants and the fellow humans and this living Earth really are our

part of our life. And when we listen, we care. We care. We don't want to hurt. You know, we want to hold hands. We want to protect. We want to live from love. So we'll close somewhat as we started with a kind of listening meditation very, very short just to end this. and wherever you are, you might make sure you're comfortable, take a pause right now that helps to close your eyes or lower your gaze, please do. You might just feel your body for a moment and sense what wants to let go a little. And then come into a state of listening, aware of the sounds around you, letting them wash through to listening to the sounds in the room,

listening into the space in the room, listening to and feeling the aliveness of your body right now, bringing that listening attention to your own heart, listen to your heart, and sense, what does your heart care about? What does your heart value? What do you want to remember as you move into whatever's next in your life? You might widen the listening. So you're bringing to mind someone dear in your life, is bringing that kind of listening attention to them, perhaps seeing their face, seeing their eyes. And with that receptivity, just sensing, what is life like for you? What's mattering to you right now? Is there anything that's hurting right now? What do you need? And with that open-hearted listening, just feeling your care and widening to our larger world,

to all living beings and to this living earth, listening to our world, feeling your care, your belonging, feeling your prayer for our world. And as you're ready to, if your eyes are closed, you might open them, take a few full breaths. And I want to thank you, friends, for your listening presence, for your attention, for engaging, and just the wish that you can bring this listening presence more and more alive in your life in a way that brings much joy, much connection, much happiness. Blessings and thank you. Namaste. For more talks and meditations and to learn about my schedule or join my email list,

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