Leaning in and listening

There’s a simple practice that’s easy to overlook: leaning in and listening. It means slowing down enough to hear what’s going on inside us, and meeting it with curiosity instead of turning away.

Listening in this sense is more than hearing. It means paying attention to our intuition, to the truths we’d rather not look at, and to other people’s experiences, without rushing to judge. It also means facing the noise inside us as well as the noise outside.

The world as a mirror

The world reflects back at us what we project onto it, and also what we’d rather ignore in ourselves. We can use that reflection to see past the stories we tell about ourselves, and to admit that each of us carries both light and shadow.

The point of listening this way is to own what’s ours, without hunting for someone to blame, ourselves included. It asks us to question the stories we’ve built our identity on. That’s uncomfortable, because it shows us the parts of ourselves we’d rather not see. The discomfort is where the growth happens.

What you resist persists

When listening gets close to something we’re afraid of, we resist. Resistance shows up as deflection, denial or dissociation, and it’s a natural response. But avoiding something doesn’t make it go away. It digs it in deeper. What you resist persists. Only by facing our fears, and listening to what’s underneath them, can we start to take down the walls we’ve built against our own growth.

Practices for leaning in

Insight changes things only when we act on it. These practices can help build the habit of listening, to yourself and to others.

1. Challenge your beliefs by listening to them. Listen closely to the stories you tell yourself, especially the ones that reinforce your limitations, fears and superstitions. Notice when you voice these beliefs, in your head or out loud, and how tightly you cling to them. Ask yourself why you’re so attached to these limits. Why does the idea of challenging them, or of another truth, bring up discomfort or resistance? Tuning in to your own resistance and the feelings behind it is how you start to loosen the hold fear has on your life.
2. Journal at the start or end of each day about what you felt, thought and noticed about yourself and your interactions. Use it as a place to listen to your inner voice without judgment.
3. Look for the comfort in your discomfort. Ask what you gain from clinging to fears that make you wary of even the air around you, or of the creations of your own imagination. What comfort do you find in the fears that keep you bound? Would facing them dissolve the excuses that shield you from action or acceptance? Without those excuses, might you have to acknowledge your own role, or fault, in your limitations? It’s not external forces at play but our own judgments, fears and desire for control that confine us. Listening to these inner stories may turn up uncomfortable truths, and that’s the point: if the barriers to your growth and happiness come from within, you can begin to take them apart.
4. Spend a few minutes each day listening to the sounds around you: nature, the city, the voices of people you love.
5. When you catch yourself assuming something about someone, stop and ask, “What evidence do I have for this belief?”
6. In conversation, focus fully on the person speaking, resist planning your reply while they talk, and let them know you heard them. It’s the same kind of listening you’re practicing with yourself.
7. Sit for a short mindfulness meditation each day, paying attention to your breath and the sensations in your body.
8. Set aside a few minutes of silence in your day. Your inner voice is easier to hear when it isn’t competing with everything else.
9. Notice when you’re being self-critical, and answer yourself the way you’d talk to a friend.
10. Seek out stories, opinions and experiences that differ from your own.
11. When something makes you uncomfortable, lean into the feeling instead of turning away. Ask what it’s showing you about your fears, desires or boundaries.
12. Every so often, read back over your journal and notice the patterns.