Basic Listening Skill to Sharpen Your Senses

Here at Moving Intentions, we often begin with listening skills to sharpen the senses and become more aware of our own and others’ best intentions. True listening to yourself and others creates clarity and connectedness. LISTENING is the 2nd Door to Power in the Trident Power Exercise to Activate Your Intention.

My training in listening has been influenced by the Compassionate Listening Project. They have taken listening delegations to conflict hotspots like Palestine, Israel and the Balkans for over 25 years. After training, I joined them on a delegation to a Mayan school in Guatemala in 2012.

In my training, we began our relationship by practicing reflective listening skills of the Compassionate Listening Project http://www.compassionatelistening.org.

Would you like to start at the beginning with a basic listening skill? Listen to sounds with your ears and respond with your entire body. Observing these physical sensations teaches us to listen to ourselves as well as how to listen to others.

I am going to invite you to listen to a sound to sharpen your listening skills. It’s the sound of a conch being blown. A conch is a large spiral tropical seashell that has been blown by indigenous peoples for millennia. Because my dad played bagpipes since I was 2, I am used to loud, penetrating sounds. What is your response to this ancient sound?

Describe the sound you hear. Jot down a few words. Notice the physical sensations you feel in your body. This is called a “body scan” and is useful for learning about your reaction to people, sounds, and situations.

We not only develop listening skills at Moving Intentions. We develop expression skills to attract the right people to our projects. This might be a good time to view or re-visit another use of the conch in our Moving Into Your Power Series of exercises. You can view a video about the Conch Power Exercise for Calling in the Right Work Partner at the Right Time.

Now that you have listened carefully to the sound of the conch, you may be ready to make your own sounds.