Listening really well, it's the greatest gift we can offer

​I was listening to the keynote speaker at a conference the other day. He said a friend once told him, "if you listen really well, you can listen another person into being."

I wrote it down. I knew I'd write about it at some point. But I didn't know I would experience it before I ever had a chance to sit at my keyboard.

Later that day, after hearing those words, I was having a conversation with a work colleague who lives and works in another part of the state. Because of that, meeting in person is rare but always a gift of sorts.

Especially these days. These days of distance.

As we were talking, I began experiencing a comfort. Not in a way that I stopped myself in the middle of the conversation and thought 'hmm, this feels comfortable.' But more in the aftermath - in pondering the unusual peace in the experience - in exploring the mystery in it all.

And all I kept coming up with was listening. The being on the receiving end of someone not just listening, but listening really well.

I've come to believe that most of us are blessed with the capacity to hear. But more and more, I believe it's a much smaller lot of us who listen really well.

When we hear, that simply says we have used our physical means to let soundwaves activate the hearing mechanisms in our brain.

But when we listen, when we listen really well, we have combined the mechanisms in our brain with a desire in our heart. A desire to know what another desires to share.

You can be heard and never feel a thing. But something very different happens when someone listens.

My conversation with my friend eventually had to end. Life obligations and meetings call. But when she walked away I felt myself feeling that I didn't want it to end.

Because who wants to stop feeling alive? Who wants to stop feeling called into being?

Not every conversation we have is meant to call one another into being. But more of them are than we actually have with one another.

I believe our most shared form of suffering is being heard without ever being listened to. Because what being heard often triggers in us all is a deeper and deeper longing to be heard less and listened to more.

A longing - often unknown and unrecognized - to feel truly alive.

Unknown and unrecognized that is until someone walks away - and the listening stops - and you in some way feel life go with it.

And you pay gratitude. Because you realize you had a chance to experience one of life's greatest gifts. I'm not so sure it's not life's very GREATEST gift. The gift of being listened to really well.

The gift of being listened into being.

You may hear a hundred people today. Maybe a thousand. And sometimes we simply just have to hear. But someone in your life needs listened to today. I assure you of that.

I encourage you to tell them - "I want to know what it is you want to share."

I encourage you to listen to them really well.

You have no greater gift in life to give.