Did you hear what I just said?

Last week, I completed training and earned my certification as a Health and Wellness Coach. The WellCoach program is designed to help health professionals grow as effective coaches; interestingly, I believe the training process helped me grow not only as a health professional, but deeply as a person.


I will share some of the invaluable lessons I learned throughout this life changing program.

Did you ever think of listening as the foundation of life? Probably not. Why? Because we have left listening behind in our 21st century craze! Multitasking is at an all time high with the invention of text messaging, facebook, e-mail, iPhones…the list goes on. When was the last time you really listened to someone?

"I know that you believe you understand what you think I said, but I’m not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I mean.” Robert McCloskey


I think that listening, really listening is the most difficult challenge in life; the great adventure of listening isn’t something that you can master in one day. To break the challenge into a manageable snack, I started practicing listening exclusively with my coaching clients...... and WOW! What an amazing difference listening made in my experiences and conversations.

When I take the time to listen, to shut down the choas in my mind, to leave my cell phone behind, to turn off my computer, to stop eating, to stop reading e-mail, to stop multitasking period and give someone my undivided attention powerful outcomes occur. I used to walk into coaching meetings with assumptions and pre-determined prescriptions of what I believed a person needed to do or should do. But, since I started to focus on their words, their feelings, their facial expressions, and their meaning behind it all, I realized that I had it allllllll wrong.

Listening is a magnetic and strange thing, a creative force. The friends who listen to us are the ones we move toward. When we are listened to, it creates us, make us unfold and expand. “- unknown


Listening has taught me the power of people’s dreams, visions, and feelings. When I listen, people open their heart to me, and interestingly I grow and learn from living vicariously through their stories.People say that I help them, or that they appreciate meeting with me; in the end, I think I am the one who receives the ultimate gift.  Suprisingly, I learned that most people just want to be heard.  They don't want to be told what to do, or how to do it.  They just want someone to listen. 

"Deep listening is miraculous for both listener and speaker. When someone receives us with open-hearted, non-judging, intensely interested listening, our spirits expand.”Sue Patton Thoele.


I plan to move listening into all areas of my life, but I like to take baby steps so that I don’t feel overwhelmed; listening is hard and sometimes it makes my brain hurt!!  In fact, as I am writing this blog post, James called me.  He started talking to me about some amazing breakfast that his friend made him this morning.  He was telling me the details, and I know he ate something with hot sauce...but, honestly, I dont' know what the heck he ate becuase somewhere in the middle of his story I found myself messing with my blog layout. hahaha.  As soon as I realized, I giggled to myself a little.  See....listening is HARD!

How do you practice listening?

•  STOP everything else that is going on in your life: internal chatter, self talk, e-mail, phone, television, driving….everything…. and focus all of your attention on the person you are talking to
• THINK: "When I multitask while talking to someone, I am essentially saying," 'I don't care enough about you to give you my undivided attention.' or 'I am too busy for you.'
•  Don’t think about what you are going to say next.

•  Listen to understand.

•  Reflect back to them important points to make sure you really listened and understood what they said

Exciting possibilities come from listening:

· You will probably learn about what excites people, and that might excite you.

· You might light people's true values in life, which might cause you to think deeply about your own values.

· Your relationships will transform and people WANT to talk to you

· You WANT to talk to other’s because you learn and grow from their stories and experiences

I truly believe that we are all valuable to one another. We all have something to learn from someone, even if we think we cannot tolerate their presence, even if we think that they have nothing to offer us. Everyone on earth was placed in our lives for a reason. When we listen and learn, we will understand why.

"The first duty of love is to listen.” Paul Tillich

 Think of one person in your life, do you believe that you can focus on listening to that person for one day? One interaction? One week? Is it possible to try to listen today?