HJ: For many years, I thought I was a great listener. However, as I became more self-aware, I realized that I wasn’t listening — I was just waiting for my turn to speak. This is not something that is unique to me or even just a small group of people. This is, in fact, largely how the majority of the world operates until they become conscious/aware of the tendency. One of the most rewarding things I have done in this life was practice compassionate listening. It totally shifts your worldview and snaps you right into the moment. It makes you a better friend, partner, lover and mentor — whatever type of relationship you have with someone, compassionate listening will improve it. After all, A Course in Miracles and many spiritual masters tell us that everyone we meet is only reflecting back to us an aspect of ourselves. In this way, compassionate listening helps you to better know yourself and can lead to some very transformational healing if one is ready for such things.
The excellent article below by David Barnes of Peace of Mind Overtures will help you get acquainted with the practice and help you understand why it is such a profound experience.
– Truth
How To Be A Compassionate Listener
By David Barnes | Peace of Mind Overtures
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Depending on your family or cultural norms, stuffing your emotions can be the proper way to behave; there might be great pressure to prevent you from allowing your emotions to flow. When you freeze your emotions long enough, it can be hard to get in touch with how you really feel, and this creates another set of challenges. Eventually, these emotions need to be released. Many times they can be out of proportion to what is occurring. If you notice yourself emotionally over-reacting to a situation, there’s good chance you’re simply releasing frozen emotion. If you are on the receiving end of someone’s emotional release, you get a chance to bring more peace and healing into the world by compassionately listening.
In the movie The King’s Speech, we have an example of how to stay grounded emotionally while allowing another to thaw his emotions. Lionel Logue (Geoffrey Rush) is a highly skilled speech therapist and is a great example of someone compassionately listening.
Lionel was given the opportunity to work with a famous and powerful new client, the future King George VI (Colin Firth). He has the challenging task of helping the King work with his stammering. Lionel encourages Bertie (the King’s family name) to begin thawing his emotions and provides a compassionate space where it’s okay for his past pain and struggles to be released.
Bertie experienced a difficult childhood. He was ridiculed for his stammering, and it appears he was neglected as a child. We see how these experiences have remained with him and how he stuffed his emotion. Lionel shows us how to stay calm and centered in the face of someone releasing their frozen emotions. He doesn’t become reactive, nor does he take the King’s emotional releasing personally.
Remember, someone emotionally reacting is a reflection of his or her past pain. There’s no place for judgment, just compassion.
It takes calm strength and gentle courage to remain balanced in the face of emotional releasing. You may not be aware, but you’re providing a tangible compassionate bridge for the person releasing and it helps them make the transition back to peace of mind.
Thich Nhat Hanh sat down with Oprah in 2012 and spoke about compassionate listening. He says,
“You listen with only one purpose, helping him or her to empty his heart”
Here’s a clip of that terrific interview:
The 5 Key Benefits From This Alignment Process Movie Session:
- The ability to release frozen emotions that are ready to go.
- Staying centered, calm and compassionate in the face of other people’s reactivity.
- Releasing any need you may have for approval.
- The strength to not take anyone’s emotional release personally.
- Bringing more peace into your world through compassionate listening.
How To Benefit From This Alignment Process Movie?
Here’s a link to the Intention Session that is your first step to preparing for this free Alignment Process movies session. You only need to do the Intention Session once and then you can benefit from any movies session in our blogs or that are currently on our website(s). It’s that simple.
Watch the entire movie. If you fall asleep (which sometimes occurs), just go back to the part where you snoozed and watch again. If you’ve already seen this movie, you have to watch it again to get the energetic benefits.
We want to hear from you. If you have any insights or breakthroughs as a result of this Alignment Process movie session please post a comment on this blog. We’d enjoy hearing about your experience!
David Barnes co-founded Peace of Mind Overtures with Sue-Anne MacGregor and together they have co-authored two books on human emotional patterns. He currently lives in Plano, Texas with his wife Lura and their children Sarah, Michael and dog Murphy.
