Quickly Hear; Seldom Be Heard

In a world of content and information overload, it's easy for our own voices to get drowned out by the words and thoughts of everyone and everything around us. This has created a culture of people who sacrifice their humility and courage in order to boost their ego solely to be heard. In turn, this creates a never ending loop pushing us and others to find ways to feel like we matter, spewing more thoughts, creating more content and words we are all forced to consume, and now there is even more content than there was to start.

While this may not seem important, it starts to create more issues in two specific areas. First, we ourselves fall into this trap and look to find opportunities to just talk the first chance we get. Don't get me wrong, word vomiting is my favorite, but there is a time and place and this should come after we focus primarily on issue number two. Second, the people who tend to shy away from conversation are the people who already naturally keep their thoughts and feelings internal. They then face an even larger mountain to climb in order to be heard. These are the people that need to be heard the most. They're fighting a battle that is almost impossible to win (hint, hint, "almost").

Our journey in this life should be lead by the purpose to love everyone we encounter by being the brightest light we can be. Love in it's most basic definition is being present in the moment you are in with the human you are with. Why we define it this way is to simply look at it inversely. If you were with someone and they chose to doom scroll TikTok or check their emails on their computer, how would you feel? That they didn't care, and therefore they aren't there to show you love. As we strive to love, we strive to be present, and we also strive to always find a way to help other people shine their light. Empowering others to shine their light doesn't just help them, it increases the brightness of our own light and allows us to help and love more people than we ever thought possible.

One skill or idea that we can ground ourselves in to help progress us on this journey to be bright is to "quickly hear but seldomly be heard". James 1:19 is a verse I often ground myself in and is the premise for this entire idea; "Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger, for the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God." Unpacking this into four key steps, we can see why this is so so important and how we can improve as empathic loving humans.

Quick to Hear

"Hear" is different from "listen" and is synonymous with "notice". It requires us to be present and in the moment. The subtle and almost hidden clues in our world wiggle into our conscious saying, "did you hear that?". Our intuition leads us to be able to tell if someone is feeling angry or sad or whatever it may be, but we can get better at this with practice and tapping in to our emotional intelligence. I myself find I have a strong intuition but need to work on the EQ side A LOT! Have you ever wondered why you might walk into a room and see someone you know is having a bad day and then you do nothing about it? Or maybe you ask them how their day is and they give the, "it's okay", answer and you choose not to pry deeper. Noticing that they're having a bad day is where we quickly hear. This is us plugging in our light and getting it ready to shine in someone's darkness.

Slow in Listening

Once we notice something is awry, that there is a silent call for help, we have the ability to show up and be present. Hearing requires us to be constantly and broadly present, but listening pushes into being present in the moment. The best listeners are still, patient, curious, and humble. How we show up when someone needs us is where we are called to love and shine. Listening is where we allow others to be heard, to release their emotion and built up tension. Bottled up emotions are grounds for destruction, this does mean there will be instances where we are on the receiving end of that destruction. This is even more of a reason why as gold medal listeners we aren't constantly thinking about what we're going to say. We're taking things in and the only output we're conscious of is our light.

Slow to Speak

While there is a dichotomy between hearing and listening, there's also a dichotomy between speaking and talking. To speak is to alert. There is purpose in speaking, a lot of times there is no purpose in talking. As we move through this process we've heard the cry for help, we've engaged with our presence and leaned in with our light and ears, and eventually it is appropriate to speak purely to comfort. Speaking to be heard requires thought and structure in order to make sense. Speaking is like hearing, it's intuitive, it comes from our emotional intelligence. It's the "I hear you", or the, "I'm listening and I'm here right by your side". It serves no purpose other than to comfort and create an auditory signal that there's a light for their darkness, as sometimes in darkness we need a little guidance to find that pesky switch.

Seldomly Be Heard

This process should often end in a constant feedback loop of the first three steps. However, there are times where we are required to actually speak. Remember, the part that requires thinking and structure in order to make sense? Ironically, like the other steps in the process, we want to rely on intuition and EQ. As we venture away from these we are forced to add structure by planning what we want to say. This leads us to planning when we should be hearing, listening, and speaking. It brings us out of our state of presence, intentionality, and curiosity. It turns our dimmer switch all the way to the left and our own brightness losses power. Like we've talked about, it's natural as humans to want to be heard and that requires talking. However, what others should hear from us is our love and compassion. The crazy thing about this is zero words are needed in order for others to hear them.

It would be a mistake to ignore the fact that sometimes we should be heard. We all have life experiences and potentially good advice that can help someone in need. This instance is a lot more rare than we will ever know. How will we know? If we get really really good at hearing, listening, and being slow to speak, if we truly lead with love, presence, and compassion, the words will flow naturally from our soul. If we bypass those things, if we don't get good at them, our words will come from our ego, that thing always knocking at the door screaming to be heard.

Become Brighter

Like all my thoughts and ideas, the goal is for us to Become Brighter. The crazy thing about us shining our own light is that it doesn't just help others feel warmth in their darkness, it helps our light shine brighter. It may seem counterintuitive, sort of like a battery draining and needing recharged, but that topic is for another day. My ask for you all is to slow down, get better at hearing those around you through presence and compassion, learn to listen intentionally and empathetically, and understand that the words we speak matter. Talking is easy, listening is not. Lead with love. Let your light shine bright for all to see!

Let's love and grow together.

- DDD