listening

I want a future abortion conversation known for its openness, respect and empathy, so instead of generating more heat, anger and conflict, I practice pro-voice.

So if we love someone, we should train in being able to listen. By listening with calm and understanding, we can ease the suffering of another person.

Truly listening, attentively, and with care, is one of the simplest and most kind gifts we can give anyone.

Let those feelings out. Talk about it. Even if you__e talking to your journal by yourself in an empty room. That still counts. That still matters.If you know someone who__ struggling and isolated, help them talk about it. Even if they don__ have the right words. Even if you sit in silence as they try to feel safe. Even if they shower you with complaints, excuses, and justifications. Even if you can see they__e just playing small, being irrational, blaming circumstances. Just be there. It all counts. It all matters.

Instead of seeing how much pain I can dish out towards those I disagree with, or who I believe have done me wrong, I seek to follow the golden rule and use my words and behavior to create more of what the world needs _ love, compassion, and connection.

Cruel people offer pity when they no longer feel threatened. However, kind people offer compassion and understanding regardless.

Listening is an attitude of the heart, a genuine desire to be with another which both attracts and heals. (attr to J. Isham)

There is a kind of listening with half an ear that presumes already to know what the other person has to say. It is an impatient, inattentive listening, that despises the brother and is only waiting for a chance to speak and thus get rid of the other person. This is no fulfillment of our obligation, and it is certain that here too our attitude toward our brother only reflects our relationship to God. It is little wonder that we are no longer capable of the greatest service of listening that God has committed to us, that of hearing our brother's confession, if we refuse to give ear to our brother on lesser subjects. Secular education today is aware that often a person can be helped merely by having someone who will listen to him seriously, and upon this insight it has constructed its own soul therapy, which has attracted great numbers of people, including Christians. But Christians have forgotten that the ministry of listening has been committed to them by Him who is Himself the great listener and whose work they should share. We should listen with the ears of God that we may speak the Word of God.

There is something divine, mystical, magical and unexplainable in the universe that is listening and responding to each of us.

The fact that you have access to the microphone doesn't mean you know everything. There are others listening to you, who know more things than you do, but do not have access to the platform to say it.

Listen with curiosity. Speak with honesty. Act with integrity.

I think that__ what Toni Morrison and Alice Walker understand, the secret language of women. That it__ not a secret at all; men just don__ know how to listen.

When you lose your ego, you win. It really is that simple.

To attempt to describe how music pervades and flavors a life feels a little like an invasion of privacy, even if the privacy is my own. Listening to music,...is finally the most inward of acts--so inward that even language, even the language of thought, can come to seem intrusive...After all these procedures the unbreachable mysteriousness of music remains intact. The book can never be more than an interruption. Afterward, the listening begins again, to generate, in turn, other and completely different books.

The real warriors in this world are the ones that see the details of another's soul. They see the transparency behind walls people put up. They stand on the battlefield of life and expose their heart's transparency, so other's can finish the day with hope. They are the sensitive souls that understand that before they could be a light they first had to feel the burn.

Bravery is the choice to show up and listen to another person, be it a loved one or perceived foe, even when it is uncomfortable, painful, or the last thing you want to do.

Bravery is listening even when you don't want to hear it.

Compassion and communication are both incredibly important in relationships, but most of us use these at the wrong time. If we communicate, it's only in times of conflict, allowing repressed emotions and unsaid worries form into their worst phrasings. If we show compassion, it's only in good times, when we're feeling good about one another and don't feel triggered or attacked. What if we changed our approach? What if we showed compassion in conflict__aking the time to listen, understand, help each other release pent-up emotions? And what if we communicated in good times__aking the time to talk about patterns we fall into, triggers we both have, and how we can work together to break our cycles? Then, we would stop helplessly dancing the same old tango of mutual misunderstanding. Then, we could work on giving one another room to feel, to love, and to grow.