listening

People don't only speak with their mouths. They speak with their whole being. Sometimes they mean what they don't say and say what they don't mean; so listen with your whole being also. Let your whole being connect to theirs. Do not only listen to their voice, but also to their body language and their emotions. Listen with your ears and your heart.

People are looking for someone to listen to them. Someone willing to grant them time, to listen to their dramas and difficulties. This is what I call the __postolate of the ear,_ and it is important. Very important. I feel compelled to say to confessors: talk, listen with patience, and above all tell people that God loves them.

This life is a deafening roar but listen. You could hear a pin drop.

To hear is one thing, to know is another.

I found that the same softness which once made me a target now compelled people to trust me with their stories.

Tango is a truth drug. It lays bare your problems and your complexes, but also the strengths you hide from others so as not to vex them. It shows what a couple can be for each other, how they can listen to each other. People who only want to listen to themselves will hate tango.

I listened; I wrote; I learned. I do not know why so many women trusted me enough to speak to me, but underneath anything I write one can hear the percussive sound of their heartbeats. If one has to pick one kind of pedagogy over all others, I pick listening. It breaks down prejudices and stereotypes; it widens self-imposed limits; it takes one into another's life, her hard times and, if there is any, her joy too.

The most important thing a man has to tell you is what he__ not telling you,_ he said. __he most important thing he has to say is what he__ trying not to say.

People usually have to be dragged kicking and screaming into what__ good for them.

The best listener is the one who really cares about the other person.

Personal truth differs from one person to the next, so how can truth itself be a constant? At least we can listen to each other in truth.

If he stays inside himself, if he is contained within his nature as he is participant in the larger force, he will be able to listen, and his hearing through himself will give him secrets objects share.

..."But what I like doing best is Nothing." "How do you do Nothing?" asked Pooh, after he had wondered for a long time. "Well, it's when people call out at you just as you're going off to do it, What are you going to do Christopher Robin, and you say, Oh, nothing, and you go and do it." "Oh, I see," said Pooh. "This is a nothing sort of thing that we're doing right now." "Oh, I see," said Pooh again. "It means just going along, listening to all the things you can't hear and not bothering." "Oh!" said Pooh.

Listen to what you have written. A dud rhythm in a passage of dialogue may show that you don't yet understand the characters well enough to write in their vo

Learning to listen relationally, listen with cool heads and clear boundaries, listen with the quietness of the heart and the gentleness of the body, means having a self so developed it can afford to yield.

The only problem is the heart is quiet. It takes a very special kind of person to hear what the heart says. Most can't hear it at all and they have to guess. There are a lot of people walking around just guessing.

I'd much rather hear someone's unique interpretation of their own experience. Those who negate or override someone else's experience in order to one-up them or to show off their own knowledge or perceived abilities are in truth showing off their lack of listening skills and wisdom.

The best listeners are often those with the quietest heart.