Listen

In our day to day walk in life we are inundated with decisions, useless chatter, distractions, celebrations and much more. Since being laid of at the end of 08, I have had time to sit and do much of nothing. And while to some that seems like a break from the day to day things that consume our lives, it is rather consuming and tiring if you are truly using the time in a positive manner to simply listen. I have been developing my listening skills to hear what the next step for my businesses are, to help friends to receive positive affirmation...yes to receive positive affirmation. You ever been given a compliment and half-hearted thank the person who gave it...more than likely it was difficult to sit and hear something positive about oneself, not sure why. We are hammered over the head so often with what's wrong with us that it seems unnatural that someone would take the time to actually praise us for our abilities and our efforts. Don't you just love the praise that is quickly followed by criticism!? It negates the positive affirmation, I think; others use it as a tact to help the negative portion go down a little easier! I don't think it works as great as they think it does because there are mixed signals being given, don't you think? Guess it depends of the situation. I digress...

Listening has made me pay attention even more to the small details that people are really saying and how they are really feeling. Reading body language, the change in the tone of voice, their eye movement, all quite fascinating observations to what is really being said. Did you know that most people lie!?! It is more comfortable for us to hear what we want to hear than the truth. We listen to deception and lies and reject the truth. They did it to Jesus, the ultimate conveyor of truth! They had a hard time listening in it's purest for and then digesting the truth. Don't we do the same. Why is it that gossip is so sweet to our ears, but when someone tells us they don't love us the same way, we have a hard time handling it.

Listen to yourself and what you tell yourself in your private thoughts. Do you listen to yourself when you lie? Do you feel better after you have distorted truth? Listening requires much of yourself because you have to lay down your thoughts, your judgments, your preconditioning to actually hear what the person is saying.