Are you listening?
Do you complete the sentences spoken, delivered into your mind, before the story teller has had a chance to formulate the words, the thoughts, the phrasing in their own mind?
Do you blurt out your replacement word, proud that you knew what they were thinking, not understanding that in essence you are confusing their mind and bringing the focus back to you?
Egos a friend.
Are you listening?
Are you savoring the flavor of anothers thoughts, the integrity of their words, the passion they are trying to express to you in such a limited way through voice, hands, feet shuffling, excited words popping out of an enlightened face?
Or are you searching, racing your brain about your rhetorical answer, examining in your own mind what you can say next, letting your ego play with answers that will better their world, preoccupied with wandering thoughts that distract or even not communicating at all and focusing on visions of your own?
Can you hear me?
Are you watching the story tellers body language, looking deep into their eyes to see subtle reflections of loss, grief, suffering that no one but they can express about their own lifes hurts and pain?
How much are you listening?
Can you feel their striving, do you try and enter their world, walk in their soul shoes, try on their lives like a favorite jacket and truly learn from their experiences?
It's just like Heaven.
Learning from a personal story teller's experiences. I've been to heaven. Heaven, the other side, nirvana no matter what a name. Where we intimately share each others souls. We meld with each other, we become each other and fully share, grasp, without encumbrances, fully expressively, beyond honestly... to BE each other and apart. That is how we learn.
The act of listening and fully embracing anothers experiences is god like. Learning from another, taking in their essence of trust is a closer step to heaven. Heaven on earth, a taste, the knowing. Unfettered by intrusions of our own thoughts, quietness of mind. Just soaking in anothers spirit.
That is what the art of listening is. Not simply waiting for your friend to pause, breathe in deep thought, so carefully, truthfully choosing their limited words...
... for you to jump in and blurt out your views or shockingly more so change the subject.
Stop and breathe with them. Drink in who they are. Remember why they are your friend. Remember Heaven.
WaterFall
Sofia
