Listening with compassion

You can practice deep listening in order to relieve the suffering in us, and in the other person. That kind of listening is described as compassionate listening. You listen only for the purpose of relieving suffering in the other person.

Thich Nhat Hanh 

 

I feel this way at times when I am trying to discover a technique or find out how to make things work. I always try to ask questions and be a deep listener. Yet many times I am so excited to get in an intellectual discussion that I talk more than I should talk. I do it when I am upset or do not understand something.

 

I had the gift of someone just listening to me compassionately. I had problems with hackers and have been on and off the internet because of this happening to me. I feel like I let people down and still wonder if I am getting all of my emails. I have to complain and I do not like to complain. I am a problem solver and like to do things for myself.

 

I have had more down time recently than I have had in 14 years. I do not have problems like this or did not have problems like this in my life. So I did everything I could to make the computer work. I tried to block off everything that could be used and wondered if the problem with the computer was the nut at the keyboard. I tried to outwit everyone and outwitted myself quite a bit.

 

Yet I learned so much and have been grateful to the person who listened to me. Compassionate listening is an art and I do it all the time to the people who I help. So what happens when you get upset are you a talker or listener? I am both but living alone has taught me that I do talk when I have a nice person to talk too. So I have to thank the compassionate listeners that explain how things work in my life. Understanding  and relieving suffering is very important and so is listening. Everyone needs to be reminded of this in their life.