I had a call with someone a couple weeks ago. We scheduled 2 hours to talk, and I told her through email that I was committed that our conversation make a profound difference for her.
At 1 hour and 57 minutes into the conversation, her whole being shifted. She said, “I knew this call would be valuable, but never did I expect it to be whatever it is that just happened. This awakening…I feel more free than I have in the past 24 months of my life. I have no idea what it is you did or how you did it, but this is miracle-work.”
Nothing about her circumstances changed, yet her experience of life transformed. She had no clear answer to the large question she came into the conversation with, but she walked away with a much more valuable and important answer to a question she didn’t realize she was asking - and the original question no longer mattered.
Here are the two secrets that led to that transformation:
Secret #1: Profound Conversations are a Result of Profound Listening
I love to listen. I think of it as being profoundly related to reality, as being profoundly present.
When we listen at all levels, we hear not only what’s being said out loud but also the whispering wisdom - the emotional, the aspirational, the divine - behind what’s being said.
All I then do is inquire into what’s being said, and I inquire from a particular place...
Secret #2: All We Need to do is Awaken to Who We Already Are
One aspect of adulthood that I deeply appreciate is that once we’ve moved beyond adolescence, we are able to more easily give ourselves permission to not give a crap what our parents, teachers, friends, or anyone else has to say about who we are and who we should be.
This permission is so powerful because it’s all we ever need to wake up to who we already are.
There's nowhere to get and a universe of possibilities to awaken to. There's nothing wrong and an endless well of love, compassion, and insight to bring to it all. There’s nothing that needs to change and an abundance of opportunities to step into.
“Our job in this lifetime is not to shape ourselves into some ideal we imagine we ought to be, but to find out who we already are and become it.” - Steven Pressfield, The War of Art.
Listening is a cardinal skill in teaching, parenting, friendship, and perhaps life itself. Like so many other great things, listening begins with a willingness to step into a space of not-knowing. That space is where magic and miracles happen.
Thank you for reading, and thank you for the opportunity to share a story and some secrets that are meaningful to me. ❤️
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