Heartfelt Listening

Listening is an Act of Love.

Listening is a much under-utilised and under-appreciated  form of therapy. Often, the very best gift we can offer a person in some form of distress — whether physical, psychological, emotional, spiritual — is listening. A special type of listening: empathic and confidential. Many peoples cries of despair go unheeded, either because they remain unexpressed or because they are not effectively listened to.

Relatively recent research has shown that the heart has its own brain,  neurologically speaking, and it would seem to me that we need to listen to our hearts more, rather than focusing totally on our minds.  We would do well to bring our minds to our hearts as it were.

The heart has often been described in terms of and associated with love. This now appears to be literally true as well. Our heart is possibly the seat of our emotions and our emotions play a massive role in our lives.  “Its all in the mind?.”  No, indeed, the heart is intrinsically involved as well. Love is indubitably powerful. If love is located in the heart, if we listen to our heart more and enact on what we hear and learn, we shall surely be living better lives, towards ourselves and others.