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In this episode, I discuss:

•  5 basic levels of listening and how this applies to your healing process.

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Episode Transcript:

Welcome to the Healing Uncensored podcast. My name is Sarah Small, and I’m a health and mindset coach for women with autoimmune disease just like you. I absolutely love helping you tap into your self-healing power, uncover the energetic side of healing, and release limiting beliefs around your body and your life. Think of this podcast as everything you wouldn’t hear at your doctor’s office. It’s a place for empowered souls to move beyond food and heal themselves on a soul level. I hope you enjoy today’s episode. Now let’s begin.

Welcome to today’s episode. I am going to be talking about empathic listening today. And I was thinking about this morning when I woke up because the holidays are coming up. And sometimes as empaths, when we are in crowded places, we are in chaotic places, loud places, noisy places, crowded places, or cramped quarters, the energy around us can feel very, very intense. And I think of even just yesterday I was at Whole Foods getting some of the food that we need for our Thanksgiving dinner and the lines are way longer than they normally are, and traffic is worse than it normally is and there’s just a lot of energy in the collective. And it’s so important especially as an empath, especially during the holidays, and especially when there’s chaos around you to be able to truly listen to yourself.

The 5 types of listening

So what does that mean? What is empathic listening? That’s what I want to teach you today is that there are actually five types of listening. And when we are not tapped into this highest form of listening, which is empathic listening, it’s very, very challenging for us to be able to receive the messages from our body. Our body is always sending us messages. It is always communicating with us for us, and not against us. But oftentimes, we are not truly listening to our body with our entire being in order to be open to receive those messages. So as we go into this holiday season, and also just for life in general, because this can be applied to every single damn day of your life, let’s start to dive into a deeper awareness of listening.

Now, the highest form of knowledge is empathy. And that’s a quote from Bill Bullard. The highest form of knowledge is empathy. What that means to me is that when we are empathically listening, we are able to glean and pick up more information than in any other form of listening. And that is so beneficial to all of us, you and me, this community of people who probably – if you’re listening – struggle with some type of uncomfortable symptom, or chronic illness or autoimmune disease. And when we are empowered with more information, there’s knowledge through our empathic abilities. We are able to make more empowered, aware decisions. So this can also be – listening – this can be one of the hardest lessons to teach, and also one of the hardest lessons to learn. And it really requires us to break this paradigm and create a paradigm shift of what it means to truly listen. What does it truly mean to listen?

Empathic listening

I want you to close your eyes for a second unless you’re driving, and I want you to think about how you’re even listening to this right now. What senses are you using? Are you here with your full body and presence? Or maybe you are driving and multitasking. Now it’s okay if you multitask and listen to my podcast at the same time, but when we are trying to find the deeper answers in our soul, of our being, and our energy body, we can’t be multitasking. We can’t be doing all these other things and expect crystal clear answers to come through. So listening and empathic listening is one of the most important skills to develop both as a human being, as an individual to chronic illness, as a teacher or guide or coach. Any roles that you might play similar to those in your life, one of the most important skills for us to develop and start to hone in on. Because when we can truly listen, we can find deeper clarity, and through deeper clarity, we can make more aligned and intuitive decisions. And we can allow space for our body to explore deeper answers.

So how did we get here? How come none of us are really listening anymore? Well, there are no classes in school that cover how to listen. Now we’re told, “Be a good listener.” “Sarah, be a good listener, open your ears, listen to me, listen to me, be a good listener.” What the fuck does that mean? There are no classes that actually break down, at least not in my public school system, or college, or my master’s degree. I did not have any classes on empathic listening, or emotional intelligence for that matter, as well. But it’s so important, an important skill to have in business, in relationships, partnerships, in life, with our body. It’s so important. But yet, there are still no classes on listening in school. So we have to learn how to listen, how to be a good listener. What does it actually mean to be a good listener? Instead of just saying that or hearing that from your parent or teacher or mentor, what the hell does that mean?

Well, when we allow ourselves to dive into this place of empathic listening, it opens up this portal, this new doorway, to truly allowing ourselves to use every sense, every finger, every toe, every breath, everything that you see in your awareness – using your entire being to listen. So I want to break down on the five types of listening. And one of our basic survival needs is to be heard. One of our basic survival needs, meaning there are not too many other needs greater by a human being, is to be heard, just to be heard. We all want to be heard. And that is why sharing your story, even just having a night with girlfriends, where you can just decompress and talk about your life– You don’t need to be asking for advice or seeking answers, but you’re just sharing. And through sharing, whether that’s with your girlfriends on the couch sipping tea, or in the car talking on your Bluetooth to your best friend, or posting on social media, when you are sharing your story, you are creating a platform for yourself to be heard.

Now, sometimes that need is still not met because there are so many people in this collective that aren’t really listening. And we all just want to be heard. So we can start to change that and create this paradigm shift by becoming better listeners ourselves so that we could allow other people to be heard. And then maybe we’ll start to feel more heard as well. So coming back, those five types of listening.

Ignoring

The first is ignoring. Now, this might seem obvious, but ignoring is a type of listening. We often begin by just ignoring ourselves. Ignoring is the absence of attention. It is the lowest level of listening. So I want you to think for a second. What are some examples of when you have ignored yourself or your body in the past? I know you can think of some. I have a whole list of times I’ve ignored my own self.

For example, I’ve been really hungry before. You guys heard me tell my relationship with food story a couple episodes back. And I didn’t always listen to the hunger cues my body was giving me. And even though my tummy was rumbling and saying, “I’m hungry,” I did not always allow that hunger to be satisfied. So I either said, “I’m too busy,” or “I’m going to get fat” or all this negative ass self-talk in my head, but it’s real, very real. And I didn’t eat even though my body was telling me, “I am hungry.”

This was also a common thread and theme in college for me where my body said it was tired. It was tired a lot because I had a really good time in college and I went out a lot, but I also was a really hard worker, and I wanted to get A’s on everything. And so there was a lot going on. I was in the library, many nights. Oh, I got to tell you guys this quick story. This is how much of a rebel I am.

When I was in college, I was in a documentary filmmaking class. And actually, I filmed, edited, produced a documentary film as one of my senior projects to graduate. And one of the smaller projects I was working on prior to this big documentary that I produced, the editing lab was only in the library. So that meant that you couldn’t really work on your documentary and editing your documentary outside of the library, which meant you could only work during the times that the library was open. So Sarah Small– Don’t call my college if anyone hears this but myself, and I think two other of my classmates, we were really crunched for a deadline. And I was going to get that documentary done by that deadline. So we hid underneath some desks as the librarian went around and locked up the library. I think it closed at like 2 am or something. So it was pretty late. And we saw the librarian and going around, turning the lights off, locking the door, and we all stayed in the library. And we actually went out and we let somebody else in the library so that we could all work on this project and get it done by the deadline. So that is Sarah, the rebel who breaks into the library to get her work done.

My point was that when I was feeling tired, that I did not always acknowledge that or listen to my body. So you might be feeling tired, and the more appropriate thing to do would be rest if that is possible, but instead, we might grab an energy drink, we might grab caffeine pills, we might grab extra four shots in our espresso drink. So again, ignoring the body’s signals. And this can happen too just when you feel unsafe. There’s this little signal in your body called your intuition that rings a little bell, a little alarm goes off, and you’re like, “Something feels off about this situation.” But not always do we listen to that gut instinct and so we ignore.

So, again, the first type of listening is ignoring. We often begin by ignoring ourselves. We can also ignore other people, obviously, but those ones are a little bit more obvious. So again, that could be a symbol of turning your body away from somebody like you’re ignoring them, not making eye contact with somebody to ignore them. Yeah, just the really not giving our attention. Ignoring is the absence of attention. Nothing will kill a relationship faster than not giving someone attention. We all want to be heard as human beings.

Pretending

So the second type of listening is pretending. This is the facade of listening. So it is, whereas ignoring is like, “No, you get the cold shoulder. I’m just turning. I’m just totally ignoring you.” This is acting like we’re present, but our thoughts are actually somewhere else. So again, I want you to think about what are some examples in your life of where you’ve pretended to listen? I, again, guarantee we’ve all done this before. Here’s what I think 99% of you are going to be able to relate to.

So you’re on the phone with a family member and either you just aren’t really into what they’re saying or maybe your attention is elsewhere. And so you’re going to act like you’re listening by saying, “Yeah, mm-hmm. Yeah, uh-huh. Mm-hmm…” You know what I’m talking about? And by making your little noises and “Yes, uh-huh, mm-hmm–” We could do this when we’re in person with someone too. We just shake our head, “Yeah, mm-hmm,” but really, you’re looking at the cute guy at the other table. So you pretend like you’re listening. Pretend like you’re listening on the phone with those little affirmations of, “I’m listening, I’m here with you,” but you’re not really there with them. That can happen too in person with somebody, not only if your gaze is off into the distance or something, but you might also be at lunch with somebody and you’re texting, you’ve got your fingers going, going, going, texting somebody while someone else is talking to you so that you are not really listening to them. It’s again, the facade of listening, you’re not present because your thoughts are somewhere else, because your thoughts are probably on “What letter comes next in the word that I’m trying to type?” instead of on the attention. Your attention is not on that person.

It’s really easy to do. We’re all guilty of it. Does that make us bad people? But when we pretend to listen, we cannot make a real connection. And when we pretend to listen to our body, this could look like a gut instinct that you’re feeling and then acting kind of halfway in the direction of what that instinct might have said. Or even just kind of that ‘Uh-huh, yeah, I hear you body.” Like, “I heard that gut instinct. I heard that little alarm go off but I’m not going to do anything about it.” So it’s like, you hear it and you’re like, “Okay, yeah, I hear you body,” but you’re not really listening because your attention is probably on something else. So you’re like, “I can’t worry about that right now,” or “There are different priorities. I can’t spend time on this.” That is pretending.

Selective listening

The third type of listening is selective listening. This is when we listen to hear what we want to hear. Can you think of yourself doing that? Or maybe you know somebody in your life who listens to hear what they want to hear. So you’re letting in at least some of what a person is saying, but not the whole story because there’s some bias here. So you have a particular view or opinion, and you’re just simply fishing for information that confirms your opinion or that is agreeable for you. So this happens often when we’re in arguments or we’re debating with someone we may or may not know, or a partner or relationship, and we might get into a little bit of a brawl, verbal brawl, back and forth, fighting about something, debating on something. And you’re going to simply listen to the aspects of their argument back to you that might confirm or be agreeable for you. So you’re listening for what you want to hear, and all the other stuff that maybe makes a lot of sense to defend their point of view, you just let that brush away. This is also seen as these rose-colored glasses that filter the world. So we put on our rose-colored glasses, and we’re only going to let in what we want to hear. This can happen when you are talking to your practitioner or even at a doctor’s office where you, again, may feel like, “I’m here, I’m present, I’m listening,” but you’re only listening for what you want to hear.

Now, for some of us, we actually want to hear the negative things. And that’s for another podcast episode but we have these things that are called underlying commitments and some of us have underlying commitments to staying sick. And so if you are listening, and have this commitment to actually staying ill for various reasons, then you’re going to look for the information that confirms that “I’m still not a healthy human being,” or “There are all these things wrong with me,” or “I need to be taken care of more,” or “I need more financial support,” or whatever that is. You’re going to look for the things that feed into your view that are agreeable for you, which allow you to still be in the place you are.

That could also go in the other direction, it just depends on the person. They may just filter out everything that was scary that the doctor might have said because they’re like, “I really just don’t want to confront this reality.” That word autoimmune disease, it might just go in one ear and out the other ear because this person does not want to hear that they are sick because they have big goals and aspirations in life and they’re like, “I can’t be slowed down by a friggin’ chronic illness. This is not okay. Chronic means chronic, right? This is over an extended period of time, potentially the rest of my life. I don’t got time for that.” So their rose-colored glasses may actually filter out anything that it needs to be changed, requires a big investment, requires extra time to be taken, or rest to be taken, and instead just hear the aspects of their health that are actually doing really, really well. This is selective listening.

Attentive listening

The fourth type of listening is attentive listening. And this is when we give someone our full attention and we could even recite back what that person had just said to us. But we’re only listening with our intellect. So what we are hearing again, and listening to, does not penetrate your energy body, it’s just the mind. So the mind can intelligently repeat back, say, the last five words that I just said on this podcast because you’re listening attentively with your full attention. And there’s the ability to be able to recite back what a person said, but there’s no connection to, for example, if you’re listening to me right now, my eyes, my heart, the tone or dictation of my voice, the undulation and articulation that’s going on kind of behind the words, it’s more just the surface, it’s just the words.

So it is said that in everyday communication, that only 10% of the meaning is conveyed by the intellectual content of the words spoken. And the other 90% is by tone, and language. And this is exactly why when you send a text to somebody, they can be misinterpreted. And you might go, “Oh, I think Lisa is mad at me,” because you interpret it one way because you don’t have any of that extra information that comes along with the intellectual information. So she might say, “Yeah, that’s fine,” and Lisa, if she was talking to you in person might have said, “Yeah, that’s totally fine. Like, it really is fine.” Or she might say, “Yeah, that’s fine,” which means it probably isn’t fucking fine, right? So these texts could get misinterpreted because we don’t have that extra information to penetrate your being for you to be able to dissect and interpretate and process what the emotion behind those words are.

So this attentive listening is when we are– Yeah, our ears are open, it’s going right into the brain but that’s pretty much it. We’re not picking up all the information of what someone is saying. This is also characterized by us formulating a response while we are listening. Have you guys ever done that? I think a lot of people who have– This is just an observation, but I think a lot of people who have anxiety, high anxiety levels, fall into attentive listening, because their anxiety then causes them to get nervous about silence or not being able to have a socially appropriate response, or how do they fit into social situations? And they instead of really listening, they’re already formulating a response on what they’re going to say back or “What question can I ask Lisa, my friend Lisa, what question can I ask her next?” or “What can I say back to her so that she feels good?” or “How could I not be weird? How can I not come off as socially awkward and weird?” So sometimes our anxiety actually manifests in this form of attentive listening, where we just can’t fully take in everything that that person is saying because, number one, if we were fully present with them, it might be a little overwhelming for us. So instead, we just listen through the ear, the brain, and then we process this response while they’re talking. So our mind doesn’t actually ever stop thinking and instead, it’s just whirling around to come up with a response. When in reality, it’s perfectly okay for there to be silence in conversations. And, again, one of our human needs is to be heard. So you’re not fulfilling this need of the other person either of them desiring to be heard, therefore, it’s also going to be hard for them to be fully present with you because it may be obvious to them that you are not really listening to them, so it’s hard for you to be heard as well.

Empathic listening

Okay. The fifth type of listening is the one that we want to be in. This is empathic listening. It’s the highest level of listening. Again, ignoring was the lowest level; empathic listening is the highest level of listening. The radical act of listening to your whole self with your whole self, listening with your whole self. And in some cases, it is also listening to your whole self. Not just the stomach ache, not just the headache, not just the eczema on the arm, not just the keratosis on your arms, not just the anxiety that’s rustling up in your heart, listening to your whole body. Or when you’re with someone else, listening with your whole self. You are fully freaking present with that person. Again, this could actually provoke some anxiety in people.

\What that says to me is, if you are someone who it’s really hard for you to listen empathically and listen with your whole self, you probably just need to ground your energy, work on your root chakra to ground yourself. You can imagine an anchor unraveling from the base of your sacrum down into the earth, so you are just rooted, you are grounded you are in your physical body. And then create some energy protection methods. Allow yourself to protect your energy like a filter, so that there is no negative energy invited or allowed. It does not have permission to enter your aura or your subtle energy body, the layers outside of yourself that are still part of you. And instead, only that which is of your highest good is allowed to enter your energy field or human body field as we talk about it in quantum physics. So when we create these protection methods or boundaries, and we ground our energy, it becomes much easier to hold space for another person and be a mirror for them versus it invoking that anxiety.

I just wanted to bring that up because I know that I have felt that way before with my own struggle with anxiety where I’ve been trying and wanting to connect with somebody in this whole self way, empathically listening to them, but it was like the anxiety was like, “Fuck, no, that’s scary. I feel raw. I’m naked. How can I stand here and be a mirror for someone? They’re going to see me naked. This is way too much energy to take on.” So the solution to that is actually quite simple as long as you practice it consistently, which is again, grounding yourself, and then creating that protection, that boundary around you. So that anything that that person might be sharing with you or the feelings that they’re experiencing, that you don’t have to hold on to them. It just bounces off of you. You can still listen with your whole self without carrying other people’s shit around with you.

So this goes beyond paying attention, to a deeper level of feeling our whole being respond to the other person. We respond with our whole being. And what this allows us to do is see those subtle things. We listen with our eyes, we listen with our heart, we listen with our hands, we listen with our entire aura. And you notice Lisa, who says, “Yeah, that’s fine.” What is she really saying? Is she saying it’s fine? Or is she saying, “I don’t want to make this a fight so I’m going to say it’s fine”? Or is she being passive-aggressive? What’s the deeper thing there? And you might notice what she’s doing with her hands, you might see what direction she’s looking. And is she making eye contact with you? If there’s eye contact, maybe she’s saying this confidently. If she’s twirling her thumbs and looking out the top right corner of her eye, maybe she’s actually quite nervous. So you get to pick up on these subtleties, the undulation of the words, the voice, the way the words come out of their mouth, and their body language so that you are opening yourself up to feel whatever that person is feeling without— This is so important. Opening yourself up to feel what that person is feeling without taking it on as your own. That is where the wounded empath comes in.

This person feels so anxious, so overwhelmed, because maybe they have opened themselves up to feel what other people are feeling by listening empathically that they don’t clear it. They just hold on to it. And they’re easily swayed by other people’s thoughts, opinions, choices. They’re easily affected by energy of rooms, space, environments they go instead of grounding themselves and still allowing themselves to feel the other person is feeling, but then not carrying it as their own. So when you are empathically listening, your whole nervous system response to what’s being said. It is whole listening. It is eyes, heart, spirit, aura, fingers, toes, listening with your whole fucking body. And it can be uncomfortable. So in order to get more comfortable with listening empathically, yes, ground yourself, boundaries, protection, but also it helps to be comfortable in your own being first, to love yourself, to be comfortable in your own skin, so that you can hold space for another human being. And that means trusting yourself, loving yourself, trusting your character, your strength, knowing that you are strong as fuck, and inviting in a deeper sense of confidence.

I think of this warrior goddess. We all have an inner warrior woman. And Wonder Woman pose is that which allows you to stand up tall, and your feet are slightly spread apart, and you take your hands into fists, and you put your hands on your hips, your fists on your hips, and you stand tall and proud through your chest, your shoulders are back, your heart is open, but you’re grounded and rooted into the earth. But you stand tall and you stand confident and it is this place where you allow yourself to feel other people’s feelings so that you can allow them, give them the gift of being heard and understood, while at the same time protecting your own energy and saying, “This is me. I know what is mine and what’s not mine to carry. I trust myself. I know I am strong. I am grounded. I’m confident in my character.” And there’s a different energy between that and that of the unprotected empath that is feeling like they’re just getting whipped back and forth across the face with everyone’s freakin’ emotions.

So Wonder Woman pose, you can stand into it. Try it out. Feet spread, legs straight, standing up tall, fists with your hands, and then hands on your hips and your chest is lifted, and it’s like you have that cape just flowing behind you because you’re powerful as fuck my friend. You have this goddess woman inside of you, this warrior. And when we empathically listen, our minds become more still because we’re not worrying about “What should I say next? What am I going to say next? How can I respond to this person?” We aren’t distracted. We aren’t ignoring. We aren’t preoccupied by texting or looking at somebody else over in the corner and worrying about them. Instead, our minds become still so that the other person feels safe opening up and doesn’t feel like they have to protect themselves. It’s like their soul can breathe. Their soul can breathe because you are such a beautiful listener. And when we allow ourselves to listen to ourselves with that same integrity, we start to get these intuitive downloads, channeled energy. We allow ourselves to feel deeper into our physical symptoms, whether that be the headache, the stomach ache, the ache in your joints, the anxiety in your heart, the rash on your arm. When our minds become still and we allow ourselves to be an open channel for source energy to flow through us and guide us, we can empathically listen, not only to other people so that their soul can breathe, but we allow ourselves to open up to our own messages, listen to ourselves so our soul can breathe too. And when your soul can breathe, it is alive. It is well. It is healthy. There’s clarity.

Think of this beautiful celestial kind of chilly, crisp air entering your body, breathing that in through your nose, this crisp celestial air. And as it breathes into your entire physical being, it brings messages. It clears out anything that no longer needs to be there. And with the exhale, you let go of anything that’s blocking you from listening, from hearing your body. We’re so stuck in ignoring and attentive listening, pretending, selective listening, that we’ve forgotten how to empathically listen. But if we shift, because we can always shift back, if we shift back to a place of listening to our body and each other with our entire being, whole listening, our entire nervous system responds, we listen with our eyes, we listen to our heart, we listen with our spirit, then we get to hold this beautiful space, not only for others but for ourselves. And in that space lies answers, and in those answers lie deep, deep healing.

So, my friends, I hope this has inspired you to at least become more aware of how you’re listening, not only to yourself, but other relationships in your life, and the stranger on the street. Take empathic listening and start to integrate it into your everyday life. And when you start to listen in this new way, this higher, elevated way, you allow yourself to step into this portal of new potential, new healing possibility, and ultimately, awaken your soul.

If this conversation spoke to you today, I want to invite you to join The Healing Activation Portal. This is 30 days of energy healing that incorporates guided meditation, vibrational medicine, and deep soul work. It is a one-of-a-kind experience that will challenge you to transform and reprogram your current way of living and being, including your potential and ability to listen empathically to yourself, your mind, your body, your spirit. And this is not a regular meditation experience. There are many things that make this program unique, including a device called the My Health device that I received as part of my bioenergetic practitioner training. This device is a powerful biofeedback device that is used in broadcast mode, and it has been proven to be effective for reducing stress, releasing and re-educating energy flow in our muscles, nerves, organs, and other areas of the body. It helps to release any energy blockages or trigger points. And so each of these meditations or, I’m calling them activations, because really they go beyond just a meditation, to activate you into a higher state of being. And they’re all channeled, intuitively guided, allowing source to flow through me so that I can tap into what most needs to be healed in the energy of the group. So they’re not pre-planned. These are all unique to the needs of the group and whatever flows through that day. Some of these activations will be held live in a Facebook group, and other ones will be pre-recorded, but they will all be hosted on one online platform that we’re calling The Healing Activation Portal.

So I would love for you to join this program. The cart just opened today, and I am so flippin’ excited. This is one place where you could have access to guided meditations on demand at any time, any place. We’re going to go through this together for 30 days, but for any reason, you fall behind or you have a busy holiday season, you could always come back in to listen to them anytime. Even if you do the full 30 days straight, you can still go back and re-listen anytime. And one of the best parts is that you have lifetime access so that when I host this course in the future and open the doors back up and add new, upgraded content each time, you’ll continue to receive all that content.

So I want you to think about whether you are truly listening empathically in your life, if you are tapped into your own energy body and have this deep awareness of your emotional state of being. And if you don’t, I want you to join this program. Because I want you to find that inner intelligence within you that you can activate and unlock so that you can live in this higher vibration, and that you can heal some of this past programming, surrender to the healing process, overcome any healing plateaus you are experiencing and just open this new doorway to what’s possible for you because you already have all the potential inside of you. And really, I’m just this guide. So when you enter this program, it is you stepping into your higher awareness, your higher self, to just explore and to see what’s possible and to awaken that which was already in you by just allowing this program to be that that key to that door. So, grab the key. Let’s get started. Come join me, The Healing Activation Portal starts December 10^th if you do want to follow us along in real-time, and you’ll also have that lifetime access for any reason if you can’t get started on December 10^th. I can’t wait for this program! I’ll drop a link in the show notes. It was a beautiful time with you all today. Have a beautiful holiday. And I’ll see you soon.

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