The Ears Of The Good Listener
Most of us are not celebrities that can afford an insurance policy on our ears so we are just gonna have to take good care of them.
This document can be read in private as a reminder and before purposefully going out into the world to become a Good Listener or it can be read with story tellers before conversations begin.
Rules of The Good Listener in no particular order:
1.) Take care of your ears which are your listening heart.
Your ears are not to be used for abuse or garbage. If someone is ridiculing you, teasing you, or being mean to you, you don’t have to listen to it. You can walk away, ignore it, or tell them that your ears are not for those purposes.
When people haven’t been heard for a very long time, they sometimes become bitter and angry. It’s OK to hear a story of distress and anger as long as it does not become abusive toward you. Another symptom of having not been heard is complaining or listing medical issues or physical pains.
The Good Listener does not have the ear of a counselor, social service worker, or a doctor. It’s OK to remind story tellers that you cannot help them in those ways. Your focus and blessing is in the area of LISTENING which has more value that we give it and which is often jumped right over into the conversations of planning, solutions, fixes, and goals. Those things are all good, but you cannot be everything to everybody. Right now your time is for LISTENING.
2.) Give your ears a rest.
Set time limits for purposeful listening. A reasonable time limit for listening to a story is 20 minutes.This can be discussed upfront with story tellers and given as a reminder midway through conversations. Time limits are up to you. But, keep in mind that as an engaged listener the stories you are hearing are tugging at your emotions, wisdom is being stored in your memory banks, and you are disciplining yourself to become a better listener. This is quite an exercise. Even weight lifters take a break between reps.
Give yourself a break. You might have more than one person who wants to share with you, but he or she is polite or too shy to interrupt. Even if you do not see another person or their wishful eye contact, it’s OK to sit quiet between stories.If you end a session and no one else is around to talk to, respect the person who you just talked to by meditating on their wisdom and hearing your own thoughts or feelings about it. While you are resting your ears remain open and inviting for the next story teller.If you have your nose in the cell phone, the laptop (as if you are working), or deep in a book, you will not seem approachable. You will seem very closed off and busy.Stick to your purpose. Maybe write down a few notes, look out a window, order a glass of water, stand up and stretch.
3.) Prepare your heart and mind.
Get ready to hear anything under the sun.
When you go to a book store you can look at the cover photo, the font, the thickness, the size, and the rating before you determine if you want to open it up for a read.Listening is much more exciting than that. You might hear a best seller or you might hear the most depressing, hopeless story of despair.And you can’t tell who is going to tell a story of depth or a fairy tale.Don’t judge a book by its cover.
A note from the founder:Some Good Listeners are very open people who have ears that are trained to handle anything. As the founder of this service, I admit that I am not that person. I am shallow, judgmental, and impatient. That is why this is so good for me. I love it when a story brings me past my judgments into a world of compassion and understanding that I never knew before.When I prepare my heart and mind to listen to stories, I remind myself that I am not doing them any favors; they are a ministry to me.I need them. I need their stories.And I need to learn and grow.
4.) Pray the same prayer for yourself that you pray for the story tellers, “May you feel the hand of God upon your life.”
Go out with the hand of God upon you…
having been prepared and set right for good listening and a good attitude
having rested and purposed yourself for this ministryhaving committed yourself to listening with your heart and taking care of it
having God’s hand of protection on you
having the wisdom inside of you ready to receive more
having enough faith in God for the follow through in other people’s lives because where you can’t be everything to them, he can,
and he will.
I pray this blessing upon you, “That you will feel the hand of God upon your life.”