Your Own Best Listener

What would it be like to be your own best listener?  Not as in, “I face the world alone and it’s you and me against everyone else,” but rather, “I face the world as a spiritual being able to tap into my own Divine self to obtain wisdom and guidance to support me in everyday life—not just for my benefit, but for the good of all."                                        

I believe that being able to be your own best listener—to access that part of ourselves   that is connected to the sacred—is the most intimate relationship a person can have. Intimate implies “being close to—really close.”  In its purest form intimacy with someone also implies a strong sense of trust, safety, and love within the relationship—  two joined together as one.

    

This isn’t just pie in the sky stuff.  Being your own best listener can be a game changer—the difference between living a life of fear, regret, and others’ expectations versus living authentically with confidence, meaning, and purpose. 

I’ll lay odds that most of you know what I’m talking about.  At one time or another, you’re likely to have made decisions where you “listened to your gut” in spite of others’ opinions and made the right choice.  There were other times when you were fearful, angry, centered in your own ego, or you did what someone else thought was best for you—be it in your career, relationship, or job choice.  At times such as this, all you can do is look back in wonder and say, “What was I thinking?”

Let’s take those memories and go back to the original question—what would it be like to be our own best listener?  What would it be like if we could readily access and trust that spiritual, Divine part of ourselves to speak and listen to our own inner truth?

To help you answer that question, here’s something you might want to try:

Think of a time when you were successful in reaching that inner part of yourself at a choice point in life, when you did make a decision (in spite of having no guarantees as to the outcome) based on that inner guidance.  Even years later, you still believe it was the right choice. 

How did receiving that information and guidance feel?  How and when did that sense of knowing come to you?  What was it about that experience that would make you want to take that inner decision making route again?   

Now take the information you gleaned from that positive experience and use it to think about what it would be like to be your own best listener at this point in time.  How would that feel to be in an intimate relationship with oneself?  How might that be of benefit to you and to others? 

Envision—Imagine—Think Best Case Scenario.  This just isn’t any old relationship, this is a relationship with your highest self, as in Divine Self, that you have the potential to access at any time.  What do you want out of this relationship?  Go for broke.

You can pose this question to yourself before bedtime, in the morning while brushing your teeth, or sitting in rush hour traffic—it really doesn’t matter as long as you consciously and sincerely pose the question to yourself.  Doing so frees the subconscious mind to do its thing and also gives the Divine permission to move full speed ahead.

   

Start writing down the words or phrases that come to you—without judgement.  Keep posing the question and allow the answers to be revealed to you.  There’s no rush.  As in any evolving relationship, particularly one in which intimacy is desirable, you want to take your time to make sure this relationship is worthy, that it will only enhance rather than negate the essence of who you really are.

Having an intimate relationship with the deepest part of our sacred selves is a choice.  You’ve got to want it—Big Time. Like all such relationships, there are moments of great joy as well as periods of extreme vulnerability.  And although that vulnerability part sometimes scares the heck out of me, it seems that there’s no way around it.  One begets the other. 

But I have learned to move beyond the fear and remember that my version of God is all about love.  I know that now.  In the end, the listening journey—being one’s own best listener—is all about love.  But my words and truth mean little in this case and your experience and knowing mean everything. 

Thomas Edison once said, “If we did all the things we were capable of, we would literally astound ourselves.” 

If we are at a point where we recognize the importance of this intimate relationship within oneself, and in fact long to get to know this inner part of ourselves in ways we have yet to imagine, we’ve taken an important first step.  The only thing I might offer is—get ready to be astounded.