When we practice being present with one another, we truly appreciate, listen, and connect in beautiful and extraordinary ways. But it takes a lot of practice to reach this state. Building trusted relationships take a great deal of effort and investment.
Life can change in a blink of an eye. For some, there is a feeling of life moving very quickly and even it seems like everything is on fast-forward propelling us along. And yet, for many of us, everything may seem stagnant and stuck.
We are not the same and each one of us experiences things differently, which explains why we often have misunderstandings and miscommunication. We can never assume we know what someone else is going through. Often, we even contradict ourselves in our minds.
First, because we are masters in playing games. There are many who easily dish out advice but rarely practice what they preach. But because of expertise in a domain, we have no visibility to how well they practice their advice. It is easy, for example, for someone to tell us that “this world is all an illusion and nothing here is real.” But imagine what happens when we challenge them and say, “well, here is a brick. If nothing is real, hit this brick over your head really hard and let’s see what happens in this illusion”?
And second of all, dialogue is an art. And we don’t always listen with an open heart. Again, assumptions are often made that create deep divisions. But when we don’t know how to listen to ourselves, it’s almost impossible to have a heart-to-heart conversation with anyone else.
Open dialogue often brings glaring rays of truth into our lives in startling ways. Two-way conversations can reveal a truth that we never knew existed. This is why this ancient communication technology helps us build trust and connection. And practicing radical honesty can have us sit up, pay attention and take action.
But let’s also brace ourselves as we might not like or agree with what we hear. People show us who they are and sometimes it’s hard to see what has been hidden. But once we do, we can make healthy choices.
We can each learn to simply listen to our heart. This ability is abundantly available to every person on the planet.
Feel free to ask questions, but also respect the answers by being fully in tune with what your heart is whispering to you. Once the whispers become clearer, you can listen to it as quietly or as loudly as you prefer.
Our schooling may have taught us to think logically, but our truth never lies.