Extreme Listening

Listening is much harder than talking. At least it is for me.  It's also a lot safer than talking, despite the title of this blurb.  I've never gotten into trouble for listening too well or too much, but I sure as hell have put my foot into it for talking, more times than I care to remember.

There are occasions, of course, when speaking is good and necessary, especially if it's to speak out against cruelty or injustice, or speaking up when a considered opinion helps to solve a problem, ease suffering, or just plain entertain and amuse.  But for all the times when speaking up or out is good and right, there are just as many situations, if not more, when talking is a real bummer, both for the person speaking and those who may or may not be listening.
There's all kinds of bad talking.  There's talking too much, or too loud, or so quietly that you can't be heard.  Then there's rude and obnoxious talking such as excessive, unnecessary profanity, talking out of turn, interrupting, mumbling, malicious gossiping, and talking for the purpose of insulting someone and hurting their feelings.  And surely the worst sort of speech is the kind that incites hatred and fear against individuals or whole groups of people.  Yes, there are so many ways to be rude and disagreeable when we talk.  But I can't think of a single way in which listening is rude or harmful. 
So why should listening be so much more difficult to do than talking?  You don't have to exert yourself in any way, unless you consider paying attention an onerous task.  You can do it while doing almost anything else - except talking, of course - or you can listen doing absolutely nothing but.  Sure, sometimes it's hard to pay attention to someone who's really boring and full of themselves, but listening is still a good thing.
Talking too much is a sign of deep-seated insecurity.  It's usually a need for attention.  The problem is that incessant babblers usually get the wrong kind of attention - the exact opposite sort of attention they seek.  Even when I'm not speaking too much, if I speak too quickly and without thinking, I invariably regret it.  That's because I'm not listening to myself.  When that happens, I open myself up to ridicule.  Talking about anything, whether it's personal, political, or philosophical, exposes the person who's speaking.  It reveals something about the speaker, however slight.  Opening that door means someone is sure to walk through it.  There will always be somebody who grabs any opportunity to slip in a clever, callous comment.
Yup.  Listening is a lot safer.
When a person who talks more than they listen is finally quiet and appearing to pay attention, they're usually trying to find a way to turn the conversation around and make it about them.  No matter what topic is being discussed, they're probably wondering how does this affect me?  And once they find a way to speak again - and they always do - they've managed to turn the conversation back to themselves.  I've seen it time and time again, and it always serves as a cautionary tale for a reformed talkaholic like me.  It's taught me how to listen, even if it means having to tolerate narcissistic, non-stop blabber-mouths.

Deep listening has not only helped me to help others - people who need to be heard - it's been healing for me as well.  Deep listening is about focus and attention.  It's a discipline.  It's a form of meditation that forces me to be still and quiet, and truly hear what's going on.  When I genuinely pay attention to someone, I'm able to hear what they're trying to say, even if they don't say it well.  Listening is the first step to learning.
The other day I listened to a good friend of mine go on and on and on about her plans for redoing her kitchen.  It was deadly dull, but I smiled and listened to her.  I missed a lot of the tedious details because I zoned out, i.e., stopped listening for a bit, but I patiently sat it out and stayed with her need to express herself.  She was excited about her new project, and I didn't want to take that away from her.  I paid attention to her need to be heard, rather than what sort of faucet and sink she was planning to install.  Otherwise I might have been short and cut her off.  But I didn't; I listened instead.  It was good for both of us.
I recently read an essay about deep listening by Thich Nhat Hanh, a Tibetan Buddhist monk. Deep listening, he says, teaches us patience, and patience is an expression of love, of compassion.  That means I must frequently behave compassionately towards people I really don't like at all, simply because I'm forced, by circumstance, to listen to them.  I hear their rudeness and know how wrong they are about whatever it is they're going on about, but I listen to keep the peace - and to keep my job.
I shall continue to practise talking less and listening more - and listening deeply.  Listening deeply is also about listening to my deepest self.  When I listen to myself, I do things more carefully, more thoughtfully.  I make fewer mistakes.  I get into less trouble.
The way I see it, being bored once in a while is a small price to pay for peace.
- G. P.

Be Love

The title of this blurb sucks.  I know that.  But that's what this blurb is about, so I'm going to stick with it.
A couple of days ago in yoga class the instructor was guiding us through a meditation.  As we lay on our backs, the teacher asked us to breathe the energy from our heart chakra into our entire bodies.  She asked us to imagine that every part of our body was infused with soft, loving, heart-energy.  "Don't just feel the energy in your body," she said, "be the energy.  Be the love."  Normally, when I hear new-agey stuff like the over-used, ill-defined "be love," I roll my eyes.  I mean, how the hell does someone "be love?"  But when my yoga teacher told us to be loving energy, rather than feel it, I was in such a relaxed, blissful state, I thought "Hey, I'm already there."  My body felt like a big, mushy blob of love, and it felt fabulous.
This morning I repeated the same exercise in a restorative yoga class.  Restorative yoga consists of gentle poses held for long periods of time, supported by props (cushions, blocks, straps etc.), so that the only thing exerting any effort is gravity.  So I had lots of time to imagine myself as Love.  Our instructor kept reminding us to breathe, deeply and fully, which I did.  But I was also filling myself up with love.  Or so I imagined.  After all, I'm an actress, and I can act or be anything I imagine.  Kids do it all the time when they "pretend."  If you've ever watched children as they play, you'll see some of the most committed "pretending" there is. 
Student actors perform numerous exercises for developing the imagination.  They'll be asked to pose as if  they're all sorts of things they're not: other people, animals,  inanimate objects, and a host of things in nature such as trees, flowers, mountains, winds and seas.  (Come to think of it, it happens a lot in yoga, too - upward and downward dogs, eagles, trees, mountains etc.)  So if we can act as if we're a seed growing into a flower, why can't we play at being an emotion?  And if I'm going to meditate on being an emotion, I figure love is a good one.
So that's what I did.  It was especially easy to do when I was lying on my back, arms outstretched, exposing my heart.  It's an open, vulnerable position, and all sorts of emotions can come up, and they frequently do.  To make the exercise more effective, I focussed on being an actor, which I am, who was practising yoga, which I do.  I looked as if I were in a yoga class, but I felt like I was doing a "magic as if" exercise in an actor's workshop.  It was Acting 101 all over again.
It was the best acting-cum-yoga class ever.  I took a feather-light, airy-fairy journey in my mind to find out what it is to Be Love, whilst sustaining a pose to realign my spine and stimulate the parasympathetic nervous system.  Focussing on my breathing didn't distract me from my intention to Be Love.  In fact, it made it easier.  I've taken many acting classes in my day, done a lot of exercises, and performed a number of different roles (but not as many as I would have liked), and I can't remember when I've enjoyed being something else so much.
Being love, rather than being in love, or loving, is an act of the imagination.  Humans aren't emotions.  We have emotions, and we feel emotions.  You can't see them, and you can't see the imagination, either, but that's where you go to be anything you want.  Playing with the imagination, the way actors do, allows a person to be anything.  So I've decided to spend more time pretending to be Love, just like an allegorical character in a Medieval morality play.  It's lots of fun, and it feels good - really, really good.
- G.P.