Vernae 0:00

You are tapped into the listening ears podcast with me, your host Vernae Bezear This is episode 12 of my podcast, and I've been really thinking a lot, these last few weeks about listening and hearing and how we listen or what we listen for. And I've come to the conclusion that what has helped me these last few weeks, that I've been dealing with a lot of discernment and a lot of questions and considerations and choices and changes and just everything. I've been struggling with listening. And I've come to realize, like I said, these last couple of weeks that I haven't been listening properly and thinking about my first episode (Episode One of this podcast) where I talked about having, listening ears and sitting up straight and being ready to receive a message. I feel like I've said this to students. And I have talked about what makes a good listener, but I, I think that I have not been the best listener, so I am starting over. I am. I made a promise to my husband on our anniversary this past Friday, August 12th, we made 16 years married. And I said to him that I was sorry that I haven't been a good listener. And I, came to realize t hat it's because that well it's because of the fact that I wasn't listening From Nothing and I vowed and promised him that I will begin to listen from nothing.

3:26

I'm just listening. I'm not listening from my past or his past, or my fears or my anxiety, judgment titles. Just, me listening to him, just listening without prejudice or, or any preconceived notions of what I'm hearing or what I expect to hear-just being present and listening, hearing, and really taking in what he's saying or what somebody else is saying. So I made that promise and I plan, and I vowed to keep it because it's not only going to help us with our relationship. It would also, it's going to also help me, myself and my relationship with others listening is difficult. And because our brains are hardwired for commonalities or, or things that, that remind us of something else or that make us think of something else, right? Our, our brains are just hardwired for that. We, we look for things that are known to us. So if I'm listening to you and let's say in the past, you have told me something, well, yeah, right now I'm like, mm-hmm, <affirmative> right . I'm listening from that perspective or that viewpoint

Vernae 5:48

Instead of being unbiased. And just listening to what that person is saying on this day, at this time, in this situation, it's, it's so important to, do that because it really creates a sense of the other person feels listened to and heard, and not even so much validated, but more like I hear you. And I really do hear you. And I hear where you're coming from and understanding that everybody communicates differently. And it's up to the person that is receiving the person that's being spoken to. It's I think it's important also to know how this person communicates, you know, think about like, what is their intention? And they're coming to you to share something and not so that you can think of a relatable story or not so that you can solve whatever dilemma they're having, but more from a neutral place without any noise, without any interference or Anything, Just listening from nothing. I am talking to you. I am just me sharing a message with you. And that's it.

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I think it also makes me think of people's love language And How sometimes people say, well , my love language is buying things, or somebody else may say that their love language is being very touchy, feely . And I say that touchy, feely like that, because that is not, that is the opposite of my love language. I don't really like to be touched, but when my husband communicates with me and I'm listening to him from a place of , um, nothing, right. He's talking to me, he may stroke my hand or touch my face or touch my hair . That's how he communicates. So being the receiver of the communication and being the receiver of the message, it's important for me to allow him to communicate that way. I think for me , I wish we lived in a world where people listen better And they came from a place of just listening, but that wouldn't work right. That wouldn't work in our world because there always has to be something that we're at odds with, right. There always has to be some type of balance. So for the listeners, we have the non listeners and for the pessimist, we have the optimist because everything needs to be balanced In the world. And we know this. So all I can hope and wish for is that we can be better listeners. And that when we do listen and we do sit down to really take in what somebody's saying, or if somebody has a message for us, that we could just receive it in such a way that just makes the person feel listened to because that's all we, that's all we really want. All we really want is to be listened to. If anything I said in this podcast resonated with you, please comment, share like, and yeah. Keep showing me love, keep showing each other. Love, keep being positive and I'll see you soon. Bye.