Listening: The ever underestimated virtue

There are more times than not that I wish I had just taken the time to listen.

Repeatedly, the power of listening keeps getting revealed to me, and yet, I dont consider it to be one of my trusty super human qualities.

It doesn’t get held up there on the top shelf with being witty or creative or unassumingly charming. Nope. Instead it’s like that can of tomato soup you forgot you had in there from 3 years ago, collecting dust in the back of the second shelf from the bottom.

And today, as I sat through meeting after meeting with people much higher on the totem pole than I, hearing them talk about how to sell or reach or penetrate or engage a target audience that just happened to be well, …. Me; but not listening to me when I contributed, I understood the value that was being lost by just not listening.

And it’s not just in business meetings that listening is crucial, it’s in life. All of it.

In acting

A HUGE component in acting is actively listening and then responding honestly. Actually, that is all acting really is at its core. But in order to give a genuine response, you must first genuinely listen.

In a lot of acting classes where people worked with great masters like Stella Adler, the students often say that maybe once every five or six weeks you would get the chance to perform. So what were you doing all those other weeks? You were watching, observing, listening to the work your peers were doing because the lessons that were being bestowed upon them were also gifts of knowledge for you.

In healing

One of the greatest gifts in my life has been being a part of a spiritual healing class for women. Often, it was a time of fellowship, of focused, uninterrupted time to stop and simply listen. When a word was being spoken, we were often encouraged to listen and take from it that which served our soul. Like a bonus blessing, just up for grabs!

In business

There is nothing more frustrating to me than not being heard. It is s sign of disrespect and it is rude. To have that done as a young person working in a professional environment, is no rare occurrence, but it shouldn’t be that way. You are seeking answers to business problems that my generation is more than happy to talk to you about, the problem is that no one wants to truly hear us because if you did, it would create change and change is scary.

In relationships …. It doesn’t matter if it’s a boyfriend of two weeks, an old curmudgeonly grandparent or a child, listening is a basic and necessary sign of respect. It is the least you can give someone and the most you can all at once.

In self awareness

There are whole religions, lifestyles and classes formed around this idea of listening to yourself. From meditation to prayer to more extreme options, it is often when we are alone, solely focused and tuned in to our own minds, when your truest self appears.

You may not recognize yourself, or like your current self, but if you just listen, you’ll open yourself up to a whole trove of inner truths,

Like what you read — then give a Rec!