Listening.

The future belongs to those who can amplify their ability to hear.

A historically and hopeful future inspired image.

We all crave deeply to be heard. To have a few moments of being completely uninterrupted and to have someone, accurately mirror back what we are trying to communicate. Perhaps the greatest gift we can be given, is to be heard. Given this, listening might be the greatest skill to develop in our time.

There is no possible way we can listen to someone when we have not taken the time to hear ourselves. We mirror what is inside of us and we are unable to give to others something we have no capacity to do for ourselves. Wise traditions value time alone in nature for the sole purpose of listening. Practices woven into the fabric of the the lives of members of their society. Socrate’s teachers put him in a pitch black cave, for three days. A re-entry into the womb in order to learn to receive. They called it incubation.

The seemingly perilous journey into silence.

When I heard about incubation I had to do it. I rappelled down into a pitch black cave in total solitude after a two hour drive to the Gordon River Caves on Vancouver Island. Descending into darkness, I set up my sleeping pad & bag and crawled in for one of the most powerful events of my life. Over the next 30 hours my experience was akin to being wrapped in the arms of a caring mother. Which I was. But I was listening to myself.

We get into trouble; in the mountains, the engineering department, in our marriages, in families and the board room because we fail to listen. We are well versed in plethora of transmissions (masculine) but at best, we only have a fledgling capacity to receive (feminine). I am not talking about men and women I am talking about human ways of being. (My mother was the worst listener of all.) We value our directive qualities in our organizations and our society often at a cost to our receptive ones. They need to be balanced. This is not a ‘nice thing to have’ but rather a critical need in every corner of our lives.

All of us need to become better at listening. It is the greatest gift we can give.

A pet peeve of mine is calling an avalanche transceiver a “beacon.” I despise this laziness. It is called a transceiver. It sends, (transmits masculine) and receives a signal (receptive feminine). People are buried in avalanches in part because of a failure to listen to themselves, others, or what the mountains are trying to tell them. If they are lucky, they will get out of their disaster by a team member switching their transceiver to receive, listening, following and finding them.

It might be said that the many hazards and crisis we traverse in our lives can only be solved by listening. If you or your organization are in trouble call me. I practice listening and can teach you and your organization about the greatest gift ever.

This device saves lives by having two functions; talking and listening.

Listening is a Self Awareness skillset. Knowing or developing the capacity to receive.

ken@archetypal.ca