Hello and welcome to Five Minutes in Nature with me,
Liz Scott,
Sheltering underneath some trees in a lane just coming off Dartmoor and a rain suddenly came in,
A very cold wind,
Very cold rain,
The sort of rain that when it hits your face makes your bones ache.
It was so cold for me and I'm on my way back home now looking forward to getting a nice hot cup of tea and today's reflection is about listening,
Listening for love.
Something I have reflected on a lot is this whole idea that to listen is to love and I wanted just to share that with you today.
There's something about listening which I keep circling back to,
It's the thing that tugs at my heartstrings,
It's almost like a child tugging at my skirt wanting attention,
It keeps calling me back and so I wanted to talk about listening today because it means a couple of different things in the way that I want to share it with you.
To listen is to love.
You see there's one thing about listening that most people fall into the trap of and when they listen,
Let's talk about listening first of all to another person,
Often they think they need to listen to either fix that person,
That person's got a problem and is looking for them to fix it,
Or they're only half listening to the other person and they're listening actually for an opportunity just to speak or to share whatever is on their mind.
So I don't know if that makes sense to you,
Maybe somebody's come to you,
They've got a problem,
You might think right it's for me to fix that problem,
That's one way we listen.
And another way we sometimes listen is we kind of just let somebody speak,
Say what they need to say and then we chip in and say whatever it is that we want to put into the space.
So when I talk about to listen is to love,
I'm not talking about this kind of listening,
When I'm talking about listening and loving somebody,
This is about listening from a space of love within you to a space of love in the other person.
And there's something powerful just about being a listener.
A listener is someone that is gently settled and is absorbing what's being said and showing the other person that they are with them on their story,
They understand what's being said.
So a listener is not just somebody that isn't speaking,
I say there's an activity,
There's an awareness around listening which makes it more than just you not speaking,
Listening is about being present to another human being.
So that's one kind of listening that is so powerful and is very rare in all fairness in everyday life.
And then the second kind of listening when I talk about to listen is to love is actually listening within,
Listening within to your own space of love,
Wisdom and peace.
And listening is not about listening with your ears,
It's about listening with your heart.
So it's like the heart listener,
You're listening to see what intuitively wants to be said or conveyed through you.
And actually when you listen to that space within you,
That's a wonderful space to be present to when you're listening to another person.
One of the things we often get tangled up in is we get tangled up in trying to fix things,
We get tangled up in our stories,
We get tangled up in what the other person is saying,
Thinking that we need to interject or to say something.
And I guess I'm throwing down a challenge to you today which is just listen.
And like I say,
Just the reminder to listen is to love.
Let's start with you,
Listen in to that space within you,
That peace of mind,
That place of wisdom,
Spaciousness,
Listen into that and feel it in your body,
Feel what wants to be expressed through you.
So that's the first thing to listen to,
Listen within and then from that space listen to another person.
Don't try and fix them,
Don't come up with solutions,
Don't be keen to try and tell them what you think is important or take the conversation on a different tangent.
If you're being called to listen,
Listen from that space of love and listen to that space of love in the other person.
To listen is to love.
Let me know your reflections on that and of course don't forget to join me again tomorrow for another five minutes in nature.
