Tag: listening

True attention

Posted on by philipdodson

Often I find myself looking at my phone, perhaps thinking of something else or many times thinking about my reply when someone is talking to me. 

I’m not listening, although, we think that is listening, because that’s normal behaviour for most of us. We are thinking about our agenda. 

However, for the person talking, it can lead them to think that you aren’t listening and you don’t care about what they have to say. The feel invisible. 

One of the greatest things we can give to our fellow humans is conscious listening. 

That means that all we are doing is listening to their words and engaging with them and actually looking them straight in the eye. We are paying attention to them and their words. 

This this helps to make the other person feel seen and understood, which is something we all seek

True listening is an act of pure love for another. 

Why did I stop writing?

Posted on by philipdodson

I used to blog every single day for literally 6 years or more. Then in March this year, after a few months of struggling to write every day, I stopped completely. It’s been a long time now since I have blogged, the longest break in all my years of writing.

Why did I stop writing?

I told myself nonsense. I listened to the mind and all its sabotage. I choose to allow myself to believe the stories that I have been making up all my life. I said ‘What’s the point?’ and stuff like ‘it’s rubbish’ and ‘no one cares’.

To be honest, it doesn’t matter if nobody cares or it’s ‘rubbish’ as I realised a long time ago, I am actually writing for myself and if someone else benefits too, then great, but if not it really does not matter. I lost sight of that and my ego and mind became active again.

I started to listen and analyse everything which was present not just in my writing but also in my life. I had slipped heavily back into my unconscious mind and all its repeating mind streams.

I had slipped back to moaning, judging, complaining, and the stories of ‘poor little me’. All of this only leads to suffering and we seem to be completely OK with inflicting this upon ourselves on a daily basis.

Have I gone back to just being and floating on my cloud like Buddha? No…I was not there before. What’s different now is I am not kidding myself that I am there. When we create this persona that we are ‘spiritual’ or ‘enlightened’ or ‘transformed’ we are exactly not that and we have just replaced one self-image with another in our unconsciousness.

What I am now is free of the burden of pretending to be something I am not and that feels great and that’s why I am writing again.