UPDATED APRIL 2024

I’m grateful for my ability to listen openly. I don’t have the same political, religious, lifestyle, economic, or racial beliefs as ALL my friends. We each vary in our beliefs based on our own perspectives of truth (beliefs) that came from our history up to our present moment.

I didn’t know what a gift it was to be able to listen until I watched so many people not listening to each other. I’ve seen the damage that not listening does to the collective. I see the damage it does to relationships with family, friends, loved ones, acquaintances, co-workers, and strangers. I see what judging others according people’s attachments to fear, lack, and separation does.

When I can listen in alignment with my soul’s energy, which is love, abundance, and peace, I can hear beyond what someone’s words are saying. If someone wants to move out of the energy of fear, lack, and separation, they will.

Changing others isn’t my job. My job is to be the example of what I’m representing inside and out, and I can only do that by listening openly. Many people fall into the energy of fear, lack, and separation because they don’t feel heard. I know I have.

I do my best to listen for the love, abundance, and peace someone is striving to get to, but hasn’t realized is inside of them. I’m grateful I was given this gift. The other option feels way too painful and restricting. When I listen, I learn. I see that all my beliefs are choices just like they are for anyone else. When I listen, I see and hear options of thought that feel like freedom or a prison, then I get to listen to voice inside me and choose.

When we are listening through the energy of fear, lack, and separation, we are looking for ways to fear more, prove lack, and react in ways to stay separate. We look for what makes us different instead of what connects us. Honestly, we often ignore our humanity and forget that there is a human on the other side of our judgments.

When we are in a place of fear, lack, and separation, we can only hear what we agree with and we won’t even consider seeing another way of thinking. We dehumanize the people who are speaking if we disagree with them. You can find proof of this in the comments of most political posts.

When we come from a place of love, abundance, and peace, we don’t have to talk down to others like their way of looking at things doesn’t matter. We see the human under their beliefs. We don’t have to agree with them. We actually listen in search of what connects us to each other. That is what the energy of love, abundance, and peace does. When we listen with open ears, we lower the defensive walls between each other and find a space for peace. When there is peace, we are open to shift and change beliefs that no longer serve us.

Pay attention to how it feels inside you when you listen from an open place. While your listening, don’t take a side, just try to figure out where the other person is coming from. Try listening between the lines. See where their beliefs align with fear, lack, and separation and/or love, abundance, and peace.

Sometimes when we listen deep enough, and ask the right questions, the person’s energy might shift in a positive direction as they hear themselves speak. The best we can ask for is when someone starts to see themselves clearly.

One of the things I like to remember when I’m talking/listening to people is they are only seeing their reality through a straw-hole, just like I am (I got this gold nugget from my first Al-Anon sponsor). We get a very little view of the big picture. Where we focus is what we will see. I can move my straw as much as I want, but I’m only ever going to see that small viewing area. If I want to see more of the picture, I have to move my straw around, I do that by listening openly. Once I move the straw, I decide if that is an area I want to look into more or keep on moving.

Today’s Aligning

Love

Today, I commit to listening from the energy of love, abundance, and peace.

This is the energy it takes to listen with open ears.

Abundance

I’m grateful for my ability to listen openly.

I’ve often said, “I want to get a tattoo on my forearm that says, Listen with Love.” Sometimes I feel like I need that reminder that we all want to feel heard. That doesn’t mean I have to agree with someone. I just want to respect their humanity.

Peace

Listen with love.

Listen to your inner thoughts with love. Listen to your loved ones with love. Listen to anyone you encounter with love. Just see how it feels. Listening with love doesn’t mean we need to agree. I just means we aren’t going to abandon our peace.

With Love, Abundance, and Peace,

©Rachael Wolff 2020, 2024

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Today’s piece is dedicated to Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Her ability to listen helped to open doors in so many ways. Thank you for your service to humanity.