How to Train a Wild Elephant_ And Other Adventures in Mindfulness - Jan Chozen Bays [49]
If you are trying this practice with the support of a group or community, one of the most interesting aspects of this exercise is to be on the receiving end—noticing how you feel or react when someone is absorptively listening to you. Most people feel gratitude for being so well witnessed. They feel cherished.
There is a scene that has always touched me in the movie Shall We Dance? A man whose marriage has ended asks, “Why do people get married?” His companion says, “Because we need a witness to our lives. You’re saying, ‘Your life will not go unnoticed because I will witness it.’”
There is a Buddhist recitation for invoking compassion, and it highlights the role of listening in caring for others. “We shall practice listening so attentively that we are able to hear what the other is saying—and also what is left unsaid. We know that by listening deeply we already alleviate a great deal of pain and suffering in the other.”
Therapists trained in absorptive listening say that it can, by itself, catalyze healing. There are types of therapy in which the therapist does not say anything, letting the wisdom emerge from clients as they listen to themselves talk.
One student who had been raised in a home where no one ever listened to him said that having someone listen to him with full attention felt like receiving “life-giving manna.” Some people find it uncomfortable at first, as it is outside of their life experience to have someone just listen to what they are saying. They feel at first as if they are under scrutiny, like a biological specimen.
Absorptive listening can also give you equanimity with the difficult voices in your own mind. When the Inner Critic says something absurd like, “Look at your wrinkles. I hate them! You shouldn’t get old!” you can just be aware of what it says, neither believing it nor reacting.
Final Words: Absorptive listening is by itself therapeutic, and you don’t need a degree in psychology to practice it.
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Appreciation
The Exercise: Stop throughout the day and consciously identify what you are able to appreciate in this moment. It could be something about yourself, another person, your environment, or what your body is doing or sensing. This is an investigation. Be curious, asking yourself “Is there anything I can appreciate right now?”
REMINDING YOURSELF
Post in appropriate places the word “Appreciate.”
DISCOVERIES
Many people have tried using affirmations to make themselves happier or more positive in outlook, repeating phrases to themselves such as, “I am worthy of love,” or “Today will be a good day and bring me what I want.” Affirmations may be valuable at certain times, but they can also paper over a troubled mind-state. This mindfulness exercise is different.
Appreciation practice is an investigation. Can we find anything, anywhere, in this moment, that is cause for appreciation? We look, listen, feel. Anything? When we take a little time, we may find that there are many things to appreciate, from being dry, clothed, and well fed, to encountering a kind store clerk or the warmth of a cup of tea or coffee in our hand.
One category of things to appreciate is that which we experience as positive, such as having food in our belly. Another category of things to appreciate is the things that are absent, such as illness or war. We don’t appreciate their absence until we’ve suffered their presence. When we recover from a bad flu, for a short while we are glad to be healthy again, grateful not to be vomiting or coughing, happy just to be able to eat and to walk. We don’t appreciate health until we’ve been ill, water until we’re thirsty, or electricity until it goes off.
This practice helps us stop, open our senses, and become receptive to what