This Q&A with John-Roger was first published in the New Day Herald in July 1988.
Q: I keep getting feedback that I don’t listen. How can I learn to listen better?
J-R: What valuable feedback! Thank those people who give it to you. Ask them what it’s like for them when they experience you not listening. They’ll probably say something like, I feel frustrated, cut off, left out…
See if their experience connects with any experiences you have had when you’ve noticed people not listening to you. That’s the first step.
The second step is to ask those people to tell you right on the spot when they feel you are not listening to them. That’s a step in awareness that may involve the help of others at first. Once you have feedback on the spot, stop and ask yourself what is pulling you away from the present moment. Is it something that is about the past? Something about the future?
Ask yourself if it’s a pattern in your life to zoom back in the past like, I hear that person talking and the last time they talked they told me something I didn’t want to hear so I wonder what they’re going to tell me this time? Or, I wonder if I did something wrong and they’re going to criticize me? Notice how that kind of thinking pulls you out of the present moment? No wonder you don’t listen!
We could make similar examples for those times when we (yes, we all do it) allow ourselves to shift out of the present into the future. I wish this person would get on with it because I have too much to do to sit around and listen all day! Or, I wonder if I’ll have enough money to get that new car after all. Or, oh gosh, they want me to do this job and I’ll probably blow it.
Not listening is a bad habit built from years of allowing our minds, run by the motor of our feelings, to look in the rear-view mirror, or to try to look ten miles down the road, instead of paying attention to what’s going on within and around us right now. All that’s going on right now is RIGHT NOW.
You can practice the discipline of bringing yourself back to the present anytime and anywhere. Just ask,” What is true for me right now?” That brings you right back. Of course, our runaway minds may chase off again and then we can practice getting aware again by asking two seconds later, “What’s true for me right now?”
If you practiced staying present thirty-two days in a row, you might one day not have to work so hard at it. Such is the nature of habits, that a new one can replace an old one.
