Listening to People

"He just won’t listen." 

"I try to talk with her and it's like she is on another planet!" 

Does this sound familiar to you? The most important part of communication is listening.  We have two ears and one mouth. Are we always complaining that other people will not listen to us? How can we get other people to listen to us or get through to them? 

By listening to others we build a stronger connection with them. If you want to have a positive effect on your loved ones and your tribe, you will need to learn to listen. Listening to others lets them know that you will care about them and have anthat you have interest in what you are doing. Listening to others creates trust and demonstrates respect. 

If you are always talking about your interests and what is important to you, you can weaken the connection that you have with other people. Asking questions and showing interest in their passions helps you build a stronger connection with your tribe and others that you care about. Do not be afraid of asking questions about what motivates and what interests other people. People always are willing to talk about themselves: their projects, their hopes, their dreams. If you want to get the attention of other people, you will need to listen to them. This kind of listening requires Observation Without Judgement.

As we learned earlier in Mindfulness that we have to take in information without making judgments, when you are listening to others you cannot be making judgements out loud or even to yourself. People will take your Judgment as a condemnation or a completion of the discussion, and this will stop communication. We do not like to be condemned. When a judge makes a decision everyone gets up and walks out of the court. If you make a judgment when you are listening, you will stop listening, and the other person will stop talking. 

Mindfulness should always lead to Kindfulness. If any judgements that you make at any later date do not lead to kind actions then they should be avoided. The more compassionate and kind that we are, the easier it will be for us to listen to others, and for them to express their deepest emotions with us. 

What makes humans the most powerful species on the planet is their ability to communicate. Not only can they communicate complex situations, they can also communicate about what happened in the past, and what will happen in the future. 

Imagine a wolf pack. Alpha in the wolf pack is smart enough to wait on a deer trail for the prey that comes sauntering along. One of the younger wolves is inpatient. The older wolf says to the younger one “Now you are going to have to move more quietly, if you don’t we are going to scare the deer away!” This doesn’t work in wolf packs. All the wolves can do is use body language or intimidate the others to follow the orders. 

As human beings we have the ability to communicate about the situation beforehand so that we can ensure that everyone involved is on board. This makes humans far superior hunters even though we are neither the fastest nor the strongest. In humans, failure to listen can cause your demise or death. 

When powerful people like movie stars or CEOs stop listening to people around them, they usually become involved in activities that are detrimental to their physical, emotional and mental health. This is why it is so important to continually listen to others. It is not as if we need to constantly obey the orders of others, it is that they will help us to learn how to live. The only way we can do that is by listening to each other.  

When we listen to others we need to use our powers of observation and not let our judgements take over. Just as in earlier lessons, you can journal the information that others are talking about at a later time. Then after another length of time then you can stop and write about your judgements. This needs to be done after a length of time has passed. 

Next week you will need to journal how you are listening to others. Are you asking more questions than you are giving information? When you are listening to others you are profoundly using your powers of observation to notice everything about what the person is sharing with you.  Are you watching their body language, the tone of their voice? Are you noticing your body posture changing as they are telling you their story? Do you make others feel safe when you are listening to them? 

Every time that you read a book, you are living the life of another person. This is the ultimate exercise in listening because you have no way of talking back to them without writing them a letter or posting something on their facebook page. During the next week carefully observe other people, and journal about the body language that they use and facial expressions that they use. Try to imagine the emotions and feelings that they are going through. Avoid judgmentjudgement while you are doing this. 

Where can we listen?

1. While meditating.
2. At home. 
3. On a bus.
4. At a park.
5. At a coffee shop.
6. On a plane 
7. At a library
8. Political events.

When are we going to listen?

At every opportunity in ourof our lives there is always a time to listen. 

When you are listening to people and asking questions, you want to ask them “why do you feel that way?” or “why do you want a pizza?” or “do you wanna pizza me?” And this is just like when the genie grants you a wish, so you ask for all of the money in the world, and a mountain of cash appears on top of you. You suffocate under a mountain of cash and die. When instead, what you really should have asked for was that you want to be safe, have power and influence in society, and be in control of your life. When people express that they want something, we must ask them why they want it. This will give us the ability to make an adjustment to help them acquire that want or desire. Before you can help someone, you must understand why they want it. After we understand why, we can get to the how and where of the question.  This will ensure that our actions are directed properly.
You will also find that when you are talking with people, you may notice that you are asking them five or six times, “Why are you wanting this?” Many times people may tell you why they want something, but they may only be telling you what they think you want to hear. If we ask questions and expect a specific answer, then this is not listening. An example would be you asking a question like “So you are voting for Trump because he is a racist bigot?” or “So you are going to law school so that you can make lots of money?” or “It’s so nice when people run in marathons to promote charity drives. Why do you run in marathons?” These are all not really questions and you are not really listening. You are just telling them what you want to hear. 

If you truly listen to people, you may be shocked when you find them breaking down and shedding tears because this is so strange and new to them that someone is listening to them. This is especially true with people who feel they are in a position of lesser power. Relax and let it be. You may find it may take some time to gain their trust because this is a complete shock to their life that someone else would actually care about them. Eventually you will find that this is a very important tool that you can use in The Human Condition to improve other's’ situations in life. 

During the following week journal about the following questions

1. How often did you listen to others?
2. How much do you listen in your life?
3. Where in your life do you want to listen more?
4. When in your life do you want to listen more?
5. Who do you need to listen to more?

Journal a response for each question above. In the videos we will be talking about listening and using stickies to organize the information that we are taking in by listening. You will find your life will be calmer and relaxed. People will love you more. People will actually become quite shocked when you ask them questions and just listen.