This is a guest post by my friend and wise business coach Jonathan Mead who nurtures a community of renegades and entrepreneurs at his site Illuminated Mind. This article previously appeared on the site The Interdependence Project.
How often do you really listen without filtering?
Unmitigated, unprocessed listening — no labeling, no judgments, no interpreting — is something very rare.
Most of the time you’re probably judging, criticizing and filtering reality based on your conditioning of what’s right and what’s wrong. Not much actual listening is being done when you’re forming conclusions before any awareness occurs.
Have you ever noticed that most of the time when you’re having a conversation with someone you’re formulating a response while they’re talking, thinking about what you’re going to say next? Much of the time you’re just waiting for them to finish so you can get a word in. Not much listening being done there.
But this happens in many more situations than just conversation…
- You formulate an opinion about a person based on their clothing, weight, speech, mannerisms, without even considering it.
- You decide that you’ll fail at something before you even start.
- You determine how an interaction will go before considering how you actually want it to be.
- You believe that things won’t change because that’s the way they’ve always been.
These are all examples of forming conclusions before you’ve actually tested anything. No listening, no observing of what is is taking place.
And I have to say, that kind of sucks. It holds us back from truly being alive. When all we do is respond based on our conditioning we’re always living in the past. We might as well be dead.
Transforming the way we listen
We can have more intimate connections with those we care about when we truly and deeply listen before beginning to formulate our response. We can listen to ourselves more deeply and discover what we truly need to thrive rather than repeating the same patterns.
But listening goes beyond just others speaking and our own thoughts.
We can listen…
- With our intuition and curiosity (rather than repeating patterns).
- With our touch.
- We can listen by feeling.
- Barefoot, with our feet kissing the earth.
- Watching the light dance through the leaves of a tree.
There are many possibilities for true, unfiltered listening.
When we truly listen we can…
- Perceive things we might have previously overlooked.
- Show someone that we truly care (undivided attention is a radical gift).
- Experience what it’s like to be alive.
- Move beyond conflict.
- Break free of our conditioning and limitations.
- See things for what they are, without attachment.
It’s pretty incredible the potential real listening has. It’s also a nice addition to the ordinary radical’s toolkit of mindfulness, meditation, and remembrance. While I’ve found mindfulness, meditation and remembrance (remembering who you really are) to be incredibly powerful, sometimes listening is a much better tool for the job. I find that when I just focus on listening I’m not thinking so much about whether or not I’m doing it right. As much as I try to release judgment I still tend to think “Am I really doing this mindfulness thing, right? Could I have been like super-ultra mindful instead of just kinda mindful?” The lens of listening tends to eradicate that for me really quick. I like that.
Listening and curiosity I’ve found tend to go really well together also. They’re both great at dissolving assumptions.
But the most important part of radical listening is not trying to do it right. You may have tried to meditate before and stopped because you didn’t think you were doing it right. You weren’t calm enough, focused enough, silent enough… blah blah blah. Screw that. Do it wrong.
That’s the approach I take, I’m okay with doing it wrong. I tend to make much more progress that way since I’m not judging myself the entire time and getting frustrated. I think it will help you you too.
What do you think? Have you ever applied radical listening to your life? How has it worked for you?
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