Listen

How well do you communicate?

When I asked that question did you think about getting your message across to others?  Or did you consider whether or not you really take in the messages others are trying to get across to you?

Effective communication requires both, but especially the latter.  Most of us are too focussed on the former (but still don't get that right) and almost completely ignore the latter.

It has been said many times that there is a reason God gave us two ears but only one mouth!

The most effective communicators listen carefully to what those around them are saying.  If you DO listen carefully you may be surprised at what you sometimes hear.  Not necessarily what is said outwardly, although that too, but especially the often partially hidden inner message.

Listening to what others are saying, and the frequently different inner meaning, doesn't mean you have to agree with them.  But once you know where they are coming from it is a lot easier to know how to get across to them what YOU want them to hear and understand.  Or to realize that you might be wasting your time trying to do so with this particular person and be better off finding someone more likely to be open to what you are saying.

Listening is also important, of course, for its own sake, not simply as a means for targeting your own messages more effectively.  Everyone has needs, and some of those needs are ones you can answer.  Maybe you can answer them with very little effort or cost to yourself, but help another person achieve great things as a result.  If so, then don't be humble, don't keep thinking that you can be of little help.  Do what you can and you may be very surprised by the result.  Try to do so selflessly, but at the same time always remember that one way or another what you do comes back to you.  Help others and you will find good things ultimately come to you as a direct or indirect result.  As Qoheleth (who was probably King Solomon) said in Ecclesiastes 11: "Cast your bread upon the waters, for you will find it after many days".  There are many quite different interpretations of this, but I certainly feel one meaning is that the good things you do will come back to you and help you long after you do them.

In any relationship listening is especially important.  Do not be that person who sits watching television and responds to everything his or her spouse says with comments like "yes, dear!" but actually is not really listening at all.  Have a proper conversation.  Really listen closely to what is being said, and perhaps even more to what is NOT being said!  Doing this can completely turn your relationship around, in a really good way!

This doesn't apply just in relationships of course.  From now on try to listen to and understand what people are saying and what they are not saying.

When nations insist on trumpeting their own beliefs and needs, and stop listening entirely to the beliefs and needs of other nations around them, this is often a pre-cursor to war.  We all need to listen more.  To understand the feelings and the needs of those around us.  What we do when we do reach this understanding is up to us.  Maybe it won't change the way we feel and the actions we are going to take, or maybe it will.  But even if there is no change we will at least be acting from a much stronger and much better informed position.

Take a decision right now that you are going to listen much harder, that you are going to try much harder to understand what it is that those around you want.  Again, I should remind you that I am not saying you should necessarily then GIVE them what they want.  But when you have a much better understanding of the feelings, wishes, and needs of everyone around you I can guarantee you will be in a much stronger position.  You will have a much better control of what is happening around you.  Why settle for any less?

How to Listen With Your Heart

by

Flo Li

"The first duty of love is to listen." -- Paul Tillich

Love is tricky. Without communication, love is not sustainable. A huge part of communication is the ability, willingness and the act of listening. How you truly listen to your partner determines the depth of your conversation and the meaningfulness of your communication. There are two major ways to listen -- one is with your head, another is with your heart.

Listening with your head requires little concentration, awareness, or compassion. It is a mechanical process that most of us have mastered quite nicely. You simply listen to the words been spoken, pay little attention to tonality or body language, but you do pay a lot of attention to your internal dialogue that formulates what you will say next. The conversation becomes a ping pong game with great technicality but lacks soul.

Listening with your heart requires more focus, sympathy, and love. It is an artistic process that only the gifted few have charismatically obtained. Throughout history, the best leaders are those who truly sympathized with their troops. The most effective executives are the ones who understood their employees at a deeper level. The most intimate love relationships are the union formed between individuals who practiced heart centered listening.

Luckily for us, listening with your heart is a trained process. It simply takes practice to become more compassionate, charismatic, and loving. There are several steps you can follow to fine tune the art of listening with your heart.

1. Be glad. Start the conversation with the willingness to connect and appreciate the opportunity to connect.
2. Set your agenda aside when it is your time to listen. Your objective is to listen and to listen only. Clear your mind of what your agenda is and what you would like to gain from the conversation.
3. Listen to the words, sense the tonality behind the words, and watch the body language without a single ounce of judgment. Remember, there is no right or wrong in what might appear in front of you yet your own interpretation can make anything seem right or wrong.
4. Listen to the underlying message underneath the words by staying open. Your unconscious mind is able to pick up inferential statements which can often get clouded by the judgment of the conscious logical mind.
5. During a pause, do not jump in but take time to open your heart. By opening your heart, you are automatically connected to the other person while sympathy, love, and compassion are also expressed naturally.
6. Ask for clarification. If you do not understand something, ask for more explanation. Do not accuse of the other person for not being clear. It takes two to communication, so please take responsibility for yourself.
7. Most importantly, listen slowly. Listening with your heart requires your mind to slow down or stop in order to truly listen to another. It requires you to be more in your body and less in your head.

Practice listening with your heart as a healthy way of being. It will improve all of your relationships in a miraculous way. Remember, "the first duty of love is to listen."

About the author:

Flo Li http://floli.com/

During a physical death experience she touched the face of the infinite divine and gained spiritual freedom...Flo Li has a masters in Bioengineering and an MBA in entrepreneurship. Born a skeptic with a keen sense of scientific mind, she found herself waking up to the undeniable truth of Divine Love and Ancient Wisdom. A passionate speaker, she shares her crossing over experience and lessons learned through public talks and profound writing.

Always Make the Right Choices

Last month I introduced my blog readers to the remarkable and gifted personal development coach and entrepreneur, Katie Freiling.

I have found she has some wonderful and powerful insights, which is why I make no apology for showing you another of her videos, and will no doubt show you some more in the future too.  In this one, Katie will show you in a very clear way how you can ALWAYS make the right choices in life:

Your Philosophy

Jim Rohn: Your Philosophy

an original article by Jim Rohn

"Your personal philosophy is the greatest determining factor in how your life works out."

If you want to know how an Idaho farm boy can make it to Beverly Hills, then take the journey toward achievement by discovering the cornerstone for total and lasting success: building your philosophy. I was broke at 25 and a millionaire by 31. At 25, there was nothing in my bank and I needed to provide for my family. As I was considering what to do, I met John Earl Shoaff, a wealthy entrepreneur who became my employer for the next five years. He revolutionized my life and taught me the importance of developing my philosophy. It isn’t a complex or mystical process, but a principle that can make a difference in how your life turns out. As we go forward on this journey toward success, remember you need to keep looking for those few things that make the most difference in your life, and spend most of your time doing those things. Effective time management is the best-kept secret of the rich. While there are five major puzzle pieces for success, without the first — developing a sound philosophy — the other pieces are of little value.

 

Set Your Sail

The winds of circumstance blow upon all of us. We all have experienced the winds of disappointment, despair and heartbreak, but why do people arrive at such different places at the end of the journey? Have we not all sailed upon the same sea?

The major difference isn’t circumstance; it’s the set of the sail, or the way we think.

In spite of our best efforts, we have moments when things just seem to fall apart. The rich and the poor have the same challenges that can lead to financial ruin and personal despair. It isn’t what happens to us that determines the quality of our lives, it’s what we do after we’ve set our sails and the wind decides to change direction. When winds change, we must change. We have to struggle to our feet and reset the sail in a manner that will steer us in the direction of our own deliberate choice. The set of the sail, how we think and how we respond, has a far greater capacity to destroy our lives than any challenges we face. How quickly we respond to adversity is far more important than adversity itself. The great challenge of life is to control the process of our own thinking.

Learn From Success and Failure

The best way to establish a new and powerful personal philosophy is to objectively review the conclusions you’ve drawn about life. Any conclusion you’ve drawn that isn’t working for you could be working against you. The best way to counteract misinformation and wrong data is to input new and accurate information. Gather information from personal experience. If you’re doing something wrong, evaluate what you did wrong and change things.

Seek an objective, outside voice about how you are and what you’re doing. An objective opinion from someone you respect can lead you to early and accurate information about your decision-making process. Listen to the freshness of an outside voice — someone who can see the forest and isn’t lost in the trees.

Observe the successes and failures of other people. If people who failed were to give seminars, it would be helpful. You could see how people mess up and you wouldn’t do what they did. You could find out what poor people read and decide not to read it. Past failures and errors prompt us to amend current conduct so we don’t replicate the past.

Study from people who do well. Each of us should be in a constant search for people we admire and respect and whose behavior we can model. It’s far better to deliberately choose the people we will permit to influence us than to allow bad influences to affect us without our conscious choice.

 

Read All You Can

People from all walks of life who’ve had some of the most incredible experiences have taken the time to write of these experiences so we can be instructed and amend our philosophies. There are two books you need to read to build your philosophy: Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill and The Richest Man in Babylon by George S. Clason. The contributions of other people enable us to reset our sails based upon their experiences. Books offer treasures of information that can change our lives, fortunes, relationships, health and careers for the better.

 

Keep a Journal

A journal is a gathering place for all of our observations and discoveries about life. It’s our own handwritten transcript that captures our experiences, ideas, desires and conclusions about the people and the events that have touched our lives. The past, when properly documented, is one of the best guides for making good decisions. The very act of writing about our lives helps us think more objectively about our actions. Writing tends to slow down the flow of information and gives us time to analyze and ponder the experience. The intense scrutiny of journal writing can enable us to make refinements in our philosophy that are truly life-changing.

Jot down what you learn and be a buyer of empty books. It’s the small disciplines that lead to great accomplishments.

 

Observe and Listen

Pay attention during your day, watch what’s going on and become a good listener. Find a voice of value and stay for a while. Surround yourself with people you respect and admire. Find people whose personalities and achievements stimulate, fascinate and inspire you, and then strive to assimilate their best qualities. This is called the skill of selecting. Don’t waste your time on the silly and the shallow.

One of the major reasons people don’t do well is because they keep trying to get through the day while a more worthy cause is to get from the day. We must become sensitive enough to observe and ponder what is happening around us. Be alert. Be awake. Often the most extraordinary opportunities are hidden among seemingly insignificant events.

Be a good listener. With so many voices vying for your attention, you need to develop the skill of selective listening and only dial into the radio station that appeals to you. If a voice is not leading to the achievement of your goals, exercise caution in how long you listen.

 

Be Disciplined

Every day is filled with dozens of personal crossroads, moments when we’re called upon to make a decision regarding minor as well as major questions. These decisions chart a path to a future destination. With careful mental preparation, we can make wise choices. The development of a sound philosophy prepares us for making sound decisions. When we eat healthy foods, we experience positive results in a short time. When we start exercising, we feel a new vitality almost immediately. When we begin reading, we experience a growing awareness and a new level of self-confidence. New disciplines practiced daily will produce exciting results. The magic of new disciplines causes us to amend our thinking.

 

Don’t Neglect

Neglect is the major reason people don’t have what they want. If you don’t take care of things in your life, neglect becomes a disease. If you neglect to do good things with your money, you probably neglect to do good things with your time. If you don’t know what’s going on with your health or your bank account, you could be at risk. Set up new disciplines to change your life. Don’t neglect.

Everything is within our reach if we will read books, use journals, practice the disciplines and wage a new and vigorous battle against neglect.

Build your philosophy. Commit yourself to a new journey and say, “I’m going to change my life.” Once you do, you’ll never look back.

Listening to Your Inner Voice

Five Pathways to Listening to Your Inner Voice

by Claudette Rowley, Coach, Consultant and Author

Is your life out of sync with your priorities?
Do you feel like you're a hamster running on a wheel?
Have you forgotten who you are?
 

If you answered YES to any of these questions, read on. Learn to listen to your inner voice - the essence of who you are - by following these five steps:

1.  Check in with your heart.

Social conditioning teaches us to be logical and "use our heads". When you only use your head, your experience of yourself and the world is limited. You miss out on the vital information the rest of your body, heart and soul is giving you.

Benefits: The same neurological tissue found in the brain is found in the heart. The heart is a second "brain" and our emotional center. Listening to your head and your heart is crucial to good decision-making about your life, your business and your relationships.

New Focus: Put your hand over your heart and focus there - what is it telling you?

2.  Connect with your body.

Your body gives you a tremendous amount of useful information that you may not be conscious of. For example, when your mother-in-law visits, does your stomach tie up in knots? When your boss yells at you, do your shoulders turn into stone? When you feel passionate and alive, does your chest feel warm and open? When we ignore the body's message, we lose out on valuable information designed to let us what works for us and what doesn't.

Benefits: For many people, fear manifests as a tightness in their chest. This is valuable information, especially if you aren't aware that you are afraid. Your body alerts you to what makes feels passionate and what doesn't. The body is a fount of wisdom designed to tell you when you're on the right path and when you aren't.

New Focus: Notice the messages your body is giving you right now. Try a self-massage to find areas in your back, neck or shoulders that are tense or knotted. What other areas of your body feel tight? Which ones feel relaxed and loose? Use this information as another key to listening to your inner wisdom.

3.  Listen to your intuition.

Intuition is simply knowing something without knowing exactly how you know it. Connect back to a time that you had a "gut feeling" about something - the job that you knew you shouldn't take, even though it looked good on the surface or the relationship that just felt right for you. That's your intuition talking to you.

Benefits: Gut feelings are a wealth of information. Remember, your intuition is never wrong, although your interpretation of it may be incorrect. When your intuition calls to you, trust it. Practice makes perfect when it comes to using your intuition effectively.

New Focus: The next time you need to make a decision, check in with your intuition. Experiment with trusting it. When you follow your intuition, what happens? When you hear it and disregard it, what's the outcome?

4.  Notice your self-saboteur*.

Each of us has our very own special saboteur. The saboteur is the voice in your head that says, "You are not good enough." "Who do you think you are?" "If you take this new job, everyone will find out what a fraud you are." The saboteur's job is to "protect" you from taking risks and making changes.

Benefits: Learn to distinguish between your voice and the saboteur's mumbo-jumbo. Notice how the inner critic drives the choices and decisions you make.

New Focus: Simply notice the negative voices playing in your head. Notice the times when they crop up. Recognize that the voices aren't you and they aren't true. Learning to separate your own voice from that of the saboteur is a powerful and life changing tool.

5.  Identify limiting beliefs.

We each carry a set of beliefs that we live by. Certain beliefs you hold consciously, while others are mainly unconscious. Beliefs develop out of past experiences and our interpretations of those experiences. Some of the conscious and unconscious beliefs that you develop limit your ability to grow and move forward in your life. For example: One of your goals as a successful entrepreneur is to make a lot of money. You discover that you have a belief - a limiting one - that it's wrong to make a lot of money. Until you begin to alter your beliefs about money, it will be more difficult for you to achieve that financial success you desire.

Benefits: Learning to notice a limiting belief allows you to become conscious of it, and then change it. Releasing a belief that limits you puts you back in the driver's seat of your life. You, rather than an old belief, make the choices that are right for you and allow you to fulfill your potential
 

Ways to spot a limiting belief:

• You tell yourself that you only have one or two choices in a situation, or "no choice" at all.
• Your inner critic expresses his or her opinion. The inner critic's opinion is generally based in a limiting belief.
• A decision may appear to be black and white to you, or an either/or situation.
• You have decided that "this is the way the world is."
• You make a decision based on fear.
• You feel constricted and notice that you lack clarity about a specific situation.

New Focus: How does a particular belief allow you to attract what you really want in life? How does it prevent you from attaining your goals? When you reach an obstacle in your path, make sure that it's not an old belief in your way.

 

When important questions like "What do I want?" or "What's the right choice for me to make?" surface in your mind, consult your inner voice. You possess the answers you need to live a life that feels successful and fulfilling. Listening to your inner voice can lead you on a path that feels deeply satisfying. Your business and personal lives will flourish with this new level of trust in yourself.


*Based on the work of Richard Carson in Taming Your Gremlin.

Listening When Your Life Speaks

Listening When Your Life Speaks

 

Author:

Kate Swoboda

“Your life speaks. You have to learn to listen.” – Iyanla Vanzant

Just 15 years ago, if you had asked what I wanted to be when I grew up, I would have told you that I would be a professional musician.

This news would shock just about anyone that I know, today – but fifteen years ago, there was nothing in my life that indicated anything otherwise.

My entire life was music. I had gone to a performing arts high school where regular math, science and English classes were supplemented with courses in your major, and I was a music major. I played five instruments and participated in 5 different groups. Each year, I prepared solos or ensembles to take to district and state competitions.

After hours of practice time at school, it was not uncommon to come home and put in an additional 1-2 hours each night, plus a weekly private lesson. To afford a professional model instrument, I worked two jobs, 20-25 hours a week. For college, I had been accepted to a music school in Chicago, and fully intended to major in music and then go on to be a professional musician with freelance gigs, or a conductor, or to teach music.

There’s just this one catch: it didn’t happen.

I ended up not attending the music college that I had worked so hard to get in to. Instead, I attended a smaller college outside of Chicago that had no music program to speak of, telling myself that music would still be in my life because they had a small orchestra.

The orchestra was sub-par, and I dropped out after my first semester.

Yet: I don’t regret a thing.
 

 

What Are You Getting?

People can get really hung up on this question of “What am I supposed to do with my life?”

When coaching clients approach me with that question, I ask them to consider one that’s far more interesting: “What do you think you would ‘get’ out of knowing what you want to do with your life?”

Time and again, the answer comes back to “safety,” and when we dig around a bit with “safety,” we find that at the root of that is “control.”

Or at least the illusion of control, because control is always an illusion. Aside from our intention and where we place our attention, we really can’t control life.

If we acknowledge the root issue of trying to control something that is impossible to control, the entire house of cards starts to fall apart.

Whether we know our life path, or whether we don’t, we don’t have any control, either way.

I can say that if I had chosen to go to music school, I would have become a professional musician, but the truth is that there’s no way that I could know that. I could just as easily have ended up a programmer, a sommelier, or what I ended up as–a writer, which was what I said I wanted to be as early as the age of 2 or 3, and which is what I have ended up becoming.

Your Life Speaks

People talk of having a true calling that’s part of an innate nature, something you’re born with, and I can see how that feels true for them.

What I question is the Story that so many tell themselves about needing to know what their life purpose is, as if it’s transcribed somewhere in the world and the job is to try to find it.
I have an alternative view: your life purpose/path/vision is what you say it is. You define your life purpose in every moment, with every action, with every word, with every thought, with every belief.

If there is some purpose out there, awaiting you, and you want to find it, then inhabit your life, fully. If you commit to your life like crazy, the things that are intolerable to your spirit will rise up and make themselves known. Listen to your life when it speaks to you.

When that happens, the question put before you is: Will you practice the courage that it takes to actually take action?

Taking Action

When you start taking action and making choices, the world starts to move with you.

The illusion is that you have to know what you want to do, before you start making choices.

I ask you: had I stuck with being a musician, convinced that I “knew” my path and thus “must” follow it, how would I ever have created space in my life to become a writer?

What I see in hindsight, that beautiful 20/20 vision, are the benefits that came from being “all in” with whatever presented itself in my life. I was “all in” as a musician, until I was “all in” as a double-major in English and Sociology, and then I was “all in” as a writer when I got my Masters degree, and then I was “all in” as a professor of English, and then I was “all in” when I pursued my counseling training.

Perhaps right now you’re a mother of three; or a frustrated engineering student who isn’t sure she wants to continue; or a 48-year-old man who thought his career was set until the economy tanked and he was laid off.

The only time we get jostled by “not being on our life’s path” is when we insist that the reality before us is not part of our life’s path.

Music taught me discipline, majoring in Sociology got me curious about people, writing freed my personal story and continues to keep me fascinated by the stories people tell about their lives, and being a professor of English gave me organization and delegation skills that inform every single aspect of running my business.

Whatever paths you’ve walked have all contributed to being where you are here, right now, in this moment.

Consider the gifts that could lie ahead for you if you dropped the idea of a pre-determined path, entirely.

You don’t know where it will all lead–and this is the most beautiful part of being alive.