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“God gave you two ears and one mouth. Use them proportionately.” – Epictetus

Speaking may be an important skill but you can accomplish way more in life by becoming a good listener.  In fact, people with the most valuable information to speak and share acquired that information by being strong listeners. Listening is a far more powerful tool than you may realize.  By tuning up your ability to listen, you can create an incredible life experience.  In this post and the next, we will discuss some of the barriers that block our ability to listen well and understand.  At the end of the next post I will also give you a simple tool to help you to listen more actively and effectively in your life so you can create more of what you desire. 

A Common Barrier to Listening: “But I am listening!?!”

When taking in new information in person or by reading, if you want to get the most out of the experience, you may want to consider that you are not a very good listener. This is a more empowering point of view than thinking you are a great listener. If you believe you are already listening well, you will continue to listen in the way you always listen, even if you have not been listening well at all.

Consider taking the point of view that you are not a very good listener and that you are probably not even listening right now.  If you do this, you are much more likely to consider that you could be listening better.  Being aware of the degree to which we do not listen is a powerful access point to great listening skills and the beginning of being able to take in new information, so that you may hear the information in the appropriate context and perceive its intended meaning. 

Instead of listening to what the person is saying and hearing the intended meaning of their communication, most people are often distracted by their own thoughts. Their attention drifts while their face continues to indicate to the other person that they are listening. Most people just step over this instead of generating the courage to say, “My apologies, but could you please repeat what you just said? My mind went elsewhere for a moment.” 

You may notice this distractedness occurring as you read this blog as well. To correct this issue, all that is required is to keep acknowledging when the mind wanders and bring your attention back to this moment, right here and right now. However most people do not even realize that their mind is wandering because they have become so used to not being in the present moment that being mentally somewhere else in time and space has become normal to them. They have not been present for so long that they don’t even remember what the experience of being in the present moment is like.

Even when we are working on being in the present moment and paying attention to what is being said, we are always observing life or listening to others through a series of unconscious filters. We tend to think we are observing and listening objectively, but we are mostly (although unconsciously) looking for what we want to see or listening for what we want to hear.  Most people tend to listen more to the voice in their own head than to what is actually being said. Because of this, much information cannot get in because it gets blocked or changed by our own biases, opinions or even by simply having a different understanding or definition of the words being used. Many of these filters were created long ago in our formative years and have been in place so long that they have become completely unconscious to us. We end up being mostly unaware of their presence because we don’t even remember creating them.

This post may be short but it has the power to change your life.  Reflect deeply on this information before moving on.

More to come on this in the next post.

Why are you reading this blog?  

Are you reading it to see if you agree with it?  Are you hoping it will do something to you?  Are you just checking it out with no real commitment to anything in particular? What is your intention?

Throughout our lives, in conversations with others (and remember this blog is a conversation between you and I) we tend to have unconscious intentions guiding our listening.  We think we are listening but in reality we are perceiving our reality through various filters.

Imagine putting on a pair of sunglasses with a green tint. You spend your day wearing them outside and then when you get home, you walk into your house.  You notice that something is different about your home.  Everything is darker and greener. Then you realize you are still wearing your sunglasses.  The sunglasses have been filtering the light all afternoon and you forgot that you were wearing them. You thought you were objectively perceiving your reality but really, your eyesight had a filter on it. 

We have many of these filters that are unconscious to us, shaping what we see, what we hear and even what we feel. These filters come from our past experiences, traumatic events from our childhood, things we were told by people we saw as authority figures, the media, the news, etc….  I merely need to say a word and your associations with that word will show up immediately.  

Let’s try it. Let’s do an exercise so you can begin to become aware of some of your filters. 

Breathe into your stomach and read slowly the following list of words, pausing sufficiently on each one. Be aware of how you feel as you read the word and notice any thoughts that arise in your mind:

Marriage

Money

Scientology

Penis

Addiction

Job

Christianity

Fat 

Orgasm

Freedom

Happiness

China

Illuminati

Judgement

Math

Love

Imagination

Teachability

Insurance

School

Taxes

Drugs

Fuck

Travel

Politics

War

Network Marketing

Cancer

Forensic

Anachronism

Bill Payment

Suicide

Vacation

Sales

Liar

Noctivagant

Debt

Partner

Family

Freedom

Health

After reading these words, you may even notice a feeling or opinion you have about the list of words I chose.  This is yet another filter. 

What did you notice?  Did you see at least one filter you had about any of these words? 

Most people have numerous filters that are running unconsciously.  However, a filter is not necessarily a bad thing. By simply acknowledging an unconscious filter, you can choose a new, more productive filter. In this way a filter can be applied deliberately with purpose.  You could consciously choose a filter that has you looking for opportunities in your situation, one that looks for the good in people or one that has you believe in yourself more. 

We have a say in our filters. We have the ability to choose our own filters consciously. The key word is consciously.  If you want to influence what you see in the circumstances, situations, people and events of your life, then you need to understand that you can choose your own filters. It is the filters that run unconsciously in the background of our minds without awareness that tend to cause us problems. This is why we must actively notice, acknowledge and take responsibility for these filters so they are not limiting us.  

Why not look for evidence that life is getting better instead of looking for evidence that life is getting worse?  You have this power. Your filters are not set in stone.  We are constantly filtering our experience of reality. If you could grasp how much this is occurring, you would understand the potential of this one single idea. 

What if you could become a master of your own filtering?  What if you had a say about what you see and notice?  What if you had the same or similar filters as those you wish to emulate?  What if you had only success filters?

When you study true principles and axioms, this is exactly what you are doing.  You are making new distinctions and coming to new understandings so that, as you go through your day and your life, you will become aware of that which you were not aware before.  You begin to see life as a successful person.  You begin to make new choices.  You begin to unlock your true power to create the life you have always wanted.

The more you look through the lens of success, the more success you will have over time.  The more you are able to clearly see the truth of who you are and what is possible for you, the more you will manifest this reality. The funny thing is that when you finally experience your own happiness, success, fulfillment, peace of mind, etc… you will also realize that you had this ability all along.  You may think to yourself, “Why didn’t I create all this money, health, or peace a long time ago?”  You will realize that the power was in you all along, you just hadn’t noticed it yet.  You had been too busy looking at your life through the wrong lenses.

In the last post, I told you I would give you a  tool to help you to listen more actively and effectively in your life so you can create more of what you desire. With the background of understanding you have now, this will make more sense to you.  Now that you can see that we are constantly filtering our life experiences, consider setting a simple intention.  In other words, choose your own filter. 

When you are reading this blog, ask yourself what you would like to get out of it.  Set an intention for yourself.  Then trust that, because you have set this intention, your filtering mechanism will help you interpret the text you are reading in a way that will forward that intention. You can be specific by saying something like, “Reading this blog will help me double my income.”  Or you can be more broad and general by saying, “I think I will get something really important out of this reading.”  Being general in this practice tends to work better because it tends to be less constrictive.

Now that you’ve set your intention, let it go.  You don’t need to force anything. Accept that your filtering mechanism will do all the work and because you have done this you will be bringing yourself to the conversation with skin in the game, instead of reading passively with no real intention. Try it out.  You may not do it every time but this is a useful practice in being more at cause in what you get out of reading and in conversations with other people. 

This practice can also be extended to anything you do in life.  What you look for, you will see, so make an effort to choose your filters with conscious intent.