Resources: Listening & Relationships

Listening is more than a communications skill, it is a capacity that arises from receptive presence and awakens our awareness. As we learn to listen inwardly, we begin to understand and care for the life that is here. And as we listen to others, that same intimacy emerges.
In the resources below, we examine the blocks to listening and the practices that cultivate this essential domain of human potential. Our focus is both on the transformational power of listening in our personal lives, and also the necessity for deep listening if we are to bring healing to our wider society.
Talks on Listening & Relationships

Belonging to Each Other – Part 2 of 3
Mother Teresa writes that if we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other. These three talks explore the causes for severed belonging, and...

Belonging to Each Other – Part 1 of 3
Mother Teresa writes that if we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other. These three talks explore the causes for severed belonging, and...

The Courage to Love – Part 2
The gateway to full intimacy and love is our capacity to open to vulnerability. These two talks look at our ways of avoiding vulnerability, and offer guidance in learning to...

The Courage to Love – Part 1
The gateway to full intimacy and love is our capacity to open to vulnerability. These two talks look at our ways of avoiding vulnerability, and offer guidance in learning to...

An Appropriate Response: Living from an Awake Heart
Much of our suffering comes from reacting to stressful situations with fear or aggression, rather than responding with wisdom and care. This talk explores the pathway of shifting...

Spiritual Reparenting
[CC] ~ When we are not sufficiently nurtured in childhood, we are inclined toward anxiety, depression, addiction and other forms of suffering. In a deep way, we do not feel at...

Survival of the Nurtured – Our Path to Belonging
“We are not the survival of the fittest. We are the survival of the nurtured.”— Louis Cozolino [CC] ~ We flourish when nurtured with love and understanding. Yet for so many, the...

Listening with an Awake Heart – Part 2
"Listening and feeling heard are absolutely intrinsic to awakening our hearts and cultivating an open awareness in ourselves and in our world. …The only answer to polarization,...

Listening with an Awake Heart – Part 1
Deep listening - to our inner life, each other and our world - is an intrinsic expression of our awakened heart. Yet because we have strong conditioning to be caught in wants and...

Tara Talks: When an Attempt at Reconnection Goes Astray (6:13 min.)
Deep reconciliation requires radically opening – inwardly to ourselves, then outwardly to the other – and saying, “OK… What’s it like to be you in this right now? I’m listening.”...

Tara Talks: Not Enough Time (3:27 min.)
The more stressed we are, the more likely it is that we’ll mistake the needs of someone we care about for “an interruption.” Listen to and watch the full talk: Listening to the...

Tara Talks: We Have To Listen (2:48 min.)
Longfellow’s insight that “if we could read the secret history of our enemies, we should find in each man’s life sorrow and suffering enough to disarm all hostility” is really...
Meditations on Listening & Relationships

Meditation: A Listening Receptive Awareness (23:56 min.)
The capacity to truly listen allows us to realize the vast and sensitive awareness that is our true essence. This meditation focuses on listening to sounds, and then listening to...

Meditation: Receiving Life with an Open Awareness (20:45 min.)
We begin with listening and then bring a receptive attention to experience the life of the body. We then open the attention to the whole field of sensations and sound, and rest...

Meditation: The Silence That is Listening (14:00 min)
Listening to sounds is a powerful way to quiet the thinking mind and connect with the natural openness of awareness. This meditation emphasizes the anchor of listening, and...

Meditation: The Pathway of Deep Listening (20:48 min)
Listening is an ideal template for awareness itself - it is naturally receptive, open and awake. This meditation invites a deep listening to and feeling our lives, and opens us...

Guided Meditation: Listening to Life (25:44 min.)
The attitude of meditation is one of engaged listening – a relaxed, receptive yet intimate attention. This meditation explores how we can listen to sounds, listen to and feel...
Other Resources on Listening & Relationships
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