by Nazia Mallick on Ode Magazine
I often take late night walks. Since parks are risky options, I walk around my colony streets. I take listening walks. Does it sound absurd? Let me explain.
Listening walks are one of the best experiences we can have. It helps to hone our listening skills. It helps us to be alert and get fine tuned to the various sounds of life, which we do not take into account during our rush hours. It helps us to practice being more attentive, intuitive, wakeful and connected to the life around us. It helps us to become a person who listens.
While walking on the deserted streets, I pick up so many sounds which are often ignored during the day time buzz. Sounds of whispering trees, leaves fluttering in the gentle night breeze. The air hung between the tree-lined avenues that seem to withhold a secret. The wheezing hum of air conditioners outside the windows. The dark, silent and sleepy houses lined across the brightly lit streets, each foretelling a story. The rhythmic tunes of a wind chime trembling in someone’s balcony. The blue glow of television visible behind windows, accompanied by the soft drone. Few lit windows, telling the tale of insomniacs burning the midnight oil. Sometimes doors creaking open inside. Perhaps someone is sick or restless. Sometimes there is a child’s cry coming from a dark house. The whistle of the night watchman echoing in the empty lanes. The song of a night shift worker cycling past. A dog barking somewhere in a far away street.
When I care to listen acutely I realize that every night the breeze has a new song in its gentle flow. The trees have a new tale. Sometimes I listen to a joyful calm in the crackle of leaves. Sometimes I listen to a bustling quietude. Ready to explode. Like a brewing storm.
These quiet listenings make me feel more perceptive and help me connect with my deeper consciousness, when I finally lay down on my bed.
Listen is such a common word. We use it everyday. Listen to me. Are you listening? Why don’t you listen? Such familiar phrases. Used and heard commonly, but never really understood. We hear noises, screams, shouts, whispers, music, laughter, weeping, wailings, people fighting with each other, people talking with, at and to each other. We disagree and argue and we talk a lot when we are given a chance. But do we listen? Do we really listen? Really, really listen?
Most of the times we just hear what the other has to say, but we don’t listen to what the other is trying to say. And often things remain unsaid and fester inside us because someone out there has no time to listen to us.
Most of the time we forget that one of the best ways to win over others is with our ears - by listening to them. Rather than cutting through with quick repartees and smart replies.
Listening is an art. How many times have we heard this line before? Umpteen times, I think. In fact it is one of those overused phrases that we hear frequently, but never really listen.
It is one of those clichés that we often use mindlessly and gloss over it unthinkingly. Listening indeed is an art, but how? We often rush to finish sentences for others to help them get to the point quickly, so that we get a quicker chance to have our say in the matter. Too often, we listen in a laid-back, distracted way and come away with little. Too often we tend to focus more on our internal chatter than what the other person is saying. We fail to notice the resulting frustration of the other person who is feeling put out. Such acts leave both the parties not listening to each other, though on the face of it we do hear each and every word clearly.
Listen to me please! This line has such weariness hidden inside. All the wars are about not listening to the other. Have you ever wondered why people fight, scream, get physically violent with each other? More often than not people fight for things which they are not able to express. The real fight goes on within, and outwardly most of us just yell and scream; unthinkingly. More often than not, the subject of anger and aggression is not a current one. It is always a consequence of old wounds, scars, hurts and suppressed and mostly unsaid issues. Unsaid, because they were never listened to, as it should have been. There is always a desire for tenderness and intimacy that comes forth in the garb of aggression. An aggressive person with an outward show of hostility is silently screaming to be listened.
Aggression as we must know is the most vulnerable form of human emotions. All aggression starts with a realization of vulnerability and accompanying feelings of powerlessness. When we understand this vulnerable need in another person, we quietly listen to their innermost need of being heard and what is so clearly difficult for them to express. It is by quietly listening that we reach out and connect to their needs and empower them to deal with their aggression.
We often remain unaware of this fact that there is an extreme power in quietly listening to a person who is showing their belligerence towards us. In knowing that there is an undelivered communication deep inside them that needs to be expressed and we are allowing that to happen. Just listen.
There is great power in listening. There is great personal power in being able to have anyone say anything to us and listen to them quietly, knowing that whatever they say has no potential in it for upsetting us. Because we have the special capability to listen to what they are not saying, what they are unable to say and we understand, and empathize with them.
By developing listening techniques we can learn to listen through our differences in gender, religion, sexual orientation and opinions. We discover the secrets of making wife/husband, parent/child and employer/employee relationships truly harmonious. We learn to tap into our intuitive self and decision making powers. We learn how to generate conversations that uncover new possibilities. We learn to experience significant development in the areas of conflict resolution. When we listen with something significant at stake - perhaps our relationship with the other person, we contribute value to the relationship.
And we will never have to say with that wistful appeal in our voices: Please, will you listen to me?
