Practice silence to learn to listen

It was said by a radio producer in the United States, Larry King: “Nothing I say will teach me anything. To learn, I will have to listen.” We spend the day talking, even if we are alone. Take the test: take your eyes off the screen for a moment and listen to what your mind is telling you. Your thoughts do not stop flowing. you want it or not Like what you think or not.

We talk a lot, we listen little

We constantly tell ourselves things. We are speaking beings and we need to understand, analyze, memorize, give coherence to the experiences. All this we do with words. We are born storytellers. We tell ourselves stories, sometimes certainly far from the facts…

We also constantly talk to each other. We tell them our stories, what we have discovered about the world, about ourselves, our desires, our doubts and certainties. We ask, we give, we request, we require, we implore, we reject…

Words serve us to communicate thoughts and moods. But every speaker needs someone to listen. Finding a person who knows how to listen is not always easy. We listen to each other correctly to convey messages of little importance… and we don’t always succeed. It is enough to see how complex it is to transmit simple orders at work, or at home: “I had told you that…”. “Ah! Well, I understood that…”. It is something that happens often.

Why is it difficult to be heard? Do you remember the last time you felt that you were not being listened to carefully? How did you react to? Did you know how to convey to the person the sensation of her without hurting her? Did you shut up?

We usually find it annoying that they don’t listen to us with enough attention when we are telling something to someone. When we have an important message or we need someone to listen to us, because we are going through difficult times, finding the right person with the right attitude is essential.

But let’s look at it now from the other side. And you? When was the last time you listened with your full attention to someone? In other words, without interrupting him, with empathy, showing him that you understood him, taking a real interest in that person and not wanting to quickly recount your personal experience or give your point of view hastily. It’s hard, right?

Inner calm, the first step to knowing how to listen

Both speaking and listening are an art.. An art that must be practiced and that deserves special care. It is difficult to know if it came before speaking or listening. In any case, we can affirm that when words are born from silence they are more significant and fair. As we have seen, our mind is full of words, with a constant discourse that overwhelms us.

We do not own this internal verbiage. For the vast majority of people, thought has become autonomous. The mind is a tool that we must learn to use. We need to know its capabilities and know how to use them. Speaking fair is one of them.

To speak justly, listen or be heard, the first thing is to learn the value of silence. To be silent is to remain silent, but it is also to be quiet inside. This means that the inner speech stops.

When inner silence is achieved, we prepare ourselves to speak better and also to listen better.

Our relationship with ourselves improves and our relationship with the people around us as well. But, why so much talk? Have you noticed that many times we talk to hide restlessness or anguish? Just as we explain a story to a frightened child, we tell ourselves stories internally and we also tell them to others.

6 ways to quiet the mind

To lay the foundations for active listeningBegin by working on the silence within yourself:

Sit comfortably with your back upright. Breathe deeply. It is important to relax your shoulders, neck and chest. Observe your thoughts and continue to quiet your body, looking for a relaxed way to be there present. Let your thoughts pass. This means that you observe what you think, as if you were watching the clouds go by in the sky. Realize that you can observe what you are thinking and decide whether to intervene or let the thoughts pass. Continue letting the thoughts pass for at least 20 minutes. You may have experienced a strange feeling of silence by the end. It is something pleasant and new, easy to recognize. Although it is usually very fleeting: you have to practice!

fear of silence

It would be said that our society fears silence, as if something bad could emerge from it. we constantly have “stories-noise” that lull us to sleep and calm us down, movies, television, sports, newspapers, magazines, dinners with friends, many things, that fill our time and mind.

Surely you know someone who, for example, can’t stand being alone at home without playing music or having the television on. Talking becomes superfluous if it only serves to not feel afraid. The interesting thing is to face our fears in order to live in trust and not in avoidance.

In all spiritual traditions, great value is placed on silence and internal listening. Keeping quiet, learning to calm down, is essential to open up to a better way of living day to day. With real meaning and with real confidence.

You have to dare to get in touch with silence.

I once sent a person from the city to carry out an exercise in the forest. When she returned, he told me that he had not been able to go to the end, since the silence of the place frightened him. That person projected his fears into the environment. The absence of noise helped him see all kinds of dangers. He did not know how to listen to silence and enjoy it.

By the way, do you remember when was the last time you were next to someone in silence and feeling that you understood each other deeply? Strong relationships are able to share without talking.

The 7 keys to active listening

Become aware of each of these aspects that must be taken into account to learn to truly listen:

feel interested in the person that is in front of you and open up to it. Our gestures already communicate if we are willing to dialogue or if it is going to be a conversation of the deaf. It is essential a non-aggressive posturewithout having your arms crossed, and a welcoming expression that invites confidence.Convey that we have time for each other, even if it is scarce. In a few minutes you can be very present and make it feel!Adopt a receptive attitude. This implies being attentive to our reactions and opinions, to the biases that we have and that are going to modulate our understanding. We must be there for the other person; that means contain our opinions in order to listen the other’s point of view.Not judge. If the person speaking feels judged, communication is distorted and they do not feel understood. To show empathy, we may disagree, but we have to make the effort to listen without blaming the other. Pay attention to gestures, grimaces and looks!Do not give advice or rush to solve their problems. Many times, when someone feels listened to, they themselves find ideas that help them. Other times, the mere fact of expressing emotions or thoughts already helps to clarify them.Give signs to the person that we understand. From time to time we can agree or reformulate a phrase or idea to show our empathy. Being in front of someone who does not show any sign of understanding can be very unpleasant. Only when the person asks for it, express our point of view respectfullyaccepting that the same reality can be seen in different ways and this can enrich relationships.

Really understand what the other is saying

We are constantly communicating with our environment. Voluntarily or involuntarily, with words, with gestures, with attitudes. Communication is complex and generates many problems. Knowing what we want to express and finding the right way to do it, adapted to our audience, is quite a challenge. Often we do not see that what seems so clear to us is not so clear to others.

It also costs us understand that the emotional charge of certain communications complicates the understanding of the content. In general, we can say that for communication to work we have to care about the other.

That is to say, we have to be able to be there for the other person, knowing that our point of view and our experiences are a part of reality –not all–, and that listening will broaden our horizons and provide new elements to better understand. Not all conversations are transcendental nor will they change our lives.

But from the conversation in line at the bakery to deciding with our partner where we are going on vacation, any conversation offers us an occasion to exercise in communicating from our being.

A personal and empathic work

To really care about others we have to stop believing that we are the center of the world and that everything revolves around us. At the same time, it implies feel closer to the rest of humanity.

Sometimes a smile and four words do us a lot of good, even if they come from a total stranger.

If we think about it a bit, we see that we are all travelers on this ship-planet and that we all have similar sufferings, anguish and desires for well-being. Knowing what you want to say to the other is not always easy. Even the simplest domestic or work request could be complicated if the other feels that we are demanding that they change their space or routine on our whim.

Communicating feelings or shortcomings is usually complex and requires a prior effort of personal clarification.. This exercise must begin by shutting yourself down internally, that is, going to the origin of what you feel and need to express. To do this, you have to silence yourself before speaking.

Even better, you have to silence yourself before thinking about itWell, as we said, the mind is an instrument that we rarely know how to use correctly. If the communication stems from fear or mistrust, if it is based on insecurity, the expressions are often unfair and add more problems to those that may already exist.

Carl G. Jung said that when two people talk, there are actually six people who are talking: those who believe they are, who each thinks is the other, and those who really are.

therapeutic listening

When we need to talk about our problemsWe usually go to friends. They listen to us with patience and love. It comforts us to be able to share our pains and be reinforced with words of support. It also helps to clarify things by saying things out loud and listening to the other person’s response.

There are other circumstances in which this is not enough. Perhaps because we don’t want to burden our loved ones with problems that belong to us, perhaps because we don’t feel heard or perhaps, and this is important, because discussing it with the people we usually talk to reinforces the closed circle in which we are and that does not help us.

In those moments it is good to be able find an outside person to listen therapeutically. Therapeutic listening is listening by a…