We take so many things for granted, but why are we never properly taught a greater understanding of these two fundamental things?
Posted on 23rd May 2023 at 09:24
Breathing & Listening.
It surprises me, the more I grow the compulsory things that we are taught in life versus the skills that often get missed and never used to feel that significance, benefits then felt immediately. At school, throughout education, in the workplace, so many things learned but nobody ever sits you down and teaches you how to breathe, to use the breath to its full effect. To simply know and understand in which way your body moves when you inhale and then again awareness of what happens when you exhale. I spent years essentially reverse breathing and drawing my whole body in on the inhale and as someone who has suffered with severe anxiety, this wasn’t helpful.
The same goes for listening, we’ve all had people ask us to listen. That voice bellowing through the classroom ‘are you listening?’ Embarrassment kicks in as you hadn’t heard a spoken word. Elevated words of frustration ‘will you just listen’ parent to child and many other scenarios through life and within relationships. But what does listening actually mean?
Now some of you may be reading this and have already been privileged to these life lessons but for me the pathway to learning these things has been one through self exploration, quite a long road to understanding and I’m forever learning.
I recall countless times of asking people to listen to me, waiting for them to actually understand me, not just hear the words rolling out my mouth but feel all that was behind them, understanding what is meant. Wanting to be seen, understood, helped, loved even. Yet from fear and engrained patterns of it being less confrontational or emotionally taxing we are often guilty of hearing what is said rather than what is known.
Listening, deep listening. When you really hear and understand the words being spoken, beyond that, the sensations in the body that go with the emotions that are heard. I see now, I have always been able to deeply listen but never recognised it and in turn when others didn’t listen to me I felt frustrated, I couldn’t understand why they weren’t able to understand what I was saying, not just through my words but beyond this. I am now starting to see more clearly, my empathy expanding as my depth of understanding grows, we don’t all listen in the same way. So when I’m feeling ignored, swept aside or those same issues rising I see now all that was ‘heard’ was noise, not the layers beyond this.
Listening isn’t just tuning in to whoever decides they wish to speak in front of you. Listening goes beyond this, when you really listen there is that moment, all is silent and sometimes no words need to be spoken.
To be able to truly listen, not for what you want to hear but to what’s present in the silence. This is where the answers lie, some harsh truths sit here and all is heard in the actions felt as they play out. Listen to that inner voice, despite highlighted heartache also lies magic, the power in those moments. The unspoken words speak.
Your breath it guides you and when truly understood, a sense of grounding felt like no other, you not only hear the spoken words but the words from the heart too.
Of course we all breathe each day, our breath comes and goes and our ears hear the sounds we tune in to but, ask yourself, do you fully understand your unique breath? Do your ears hear beyond the surface?
Brighter days are ahead, and this lies in greater understanding.
“In learning you will teach, and in teaching you will learn.”
Share this post: