here today to talk to you about shifting the world with deep listening.

and this is the subject that really relates to you no matter what's going on in

your life.

It's something that you can envision

as being a good thing being on the receiving end of it

by imagining

what kind of world it would be like if everywhere you went,

you were greeted with people that genuinely cared

and wanted to know

about how you're feeling,

what you need, what's going on with you

on a deep level, heart-to-heart.

And you can imagine that

in your family,

where you work,

with your friends, in your neighborhood... everywhere...

then you're getting a glimpse of what the world can be like when one person at a time,

we set the intention

to shift the world with deep listening.

And the way you can do this-- It starts with getting into the zone,

which is all about listening to yourself.

It's about being in that meditative, calm state where you can hear that

still small voice within.

researchers have tracked

the number of words that the average

American has running in their head all the time,

and that self-talk

can be clocked at the rate of 300 to 1,000 words

per...

I think it's per minute, which is just a shocking statistic, if true.

I haven't seen collaborating studies, but just the fact that there is that kind of self-talk

going on...

Yeah, that's right! Three hundred to one thousand words a MINUTE.

So if you're thinking about that for a minute,

Like, "How on Earth is that possible?" Well, sometimes our minds race.

We can do that when we're agitated and worried.

Usually we can to dig ourselves into a deeper hole

by getting into that state

of agitation.

It really does help to

slow everything down to a stop,

get really still,

really quiet, and listen.

Just listen to yourself.

That's the first step in getting there.

I had an experience with this

back in the 1990s, when I was involved

with getting a school

rebuilt, and

I was just about to go to a meeting with the school board, when before I pulled out

of my driveway, I noticed that there was a rose

blooming on the bush next to my car.

I felt inspired in that calmness, in that

state of being in the zone that I'm talking about,

to pick one of those roses. One in particular called to me.

It was just a perfect

rose with a beautiful

salmon pink color.

So I picked it, and went to the meeting.

When I got to the meeting, I got a further inspiration

to put that rose

in a glass of

water, right next to

where one of the school board members would be coming out of closed chambers.

And she in particular was one that I'd been hoping to connect with, and listen to,

and talk to... but hadn't managed to. So I left that rose for her.

When she came out of closed session--

Oh! There's one more thing. I put a note on the rose, too.

It said, "Please vote

according to your conscience."

What that meant was according to her heart, her mind...

instead of doing the expedient thing that seems

good for the short run, I wanted her to think

about other people,

about long-term decisions, the effects

of everything.

So when she came into the room,

I was amazed to see she was wearing the same exact color as that rose.

Exactly! A total

perfect match. She picked up the rose

and she held it in her hand,

she rolled it around and just

smiled faintly. She looked at the note, and she just

rolled it around in her hand like that.

And that was such an amazing moment for me, because I realized that there is a

way to connect with people

that really is heart-to-heart. Sometimes even with someone you don't think you could

connect with...

if you go to that place in the zone,

you'll be guided by inspiration

and by intuition,

and you will

do and say things in a very

beautiful way

that overcome differences that might have existed between the two of you.

I've written a blog post

today that the covers all of the

material that I'm

talking about,

including details about how you can do some of three

techniques to deep listening that I'm aware of that I've

heard make a huge difference

toward this goal of listening deeply.

And one of them is

active listening,

which is a process of

confirming almost it sounds as if you're repeating back what someone was saying,

but you're doing it

first of your head, then with your heart,

and then with a sense

from your gut how this

would affect you.

It's bringing empathy into you,

in much the same way

that you would expect someone would have empathy for you instead of just

parroting back like, "Oh! You're saying this!"

And they're talking from their head.

You want to get them into their heart.

You want to get them to really

feel where you're coming from.

When you're heard like that,

it makes a huge difference.

Another method is a Clearness

Committee,

which is a Quaker concept that was created in the 1660's

in America.

It's a spiritual process that has very simple rules.

And those rules allow

a focused person to

acknowledge

the past, present,

and the future aspects of whatever areas of concern they have.

They share it with a committee

that has members which convene,

and all that the members can do is ask opened and honest questions.

Things like, "Did you ever feel like this before?"

and "Who are you trying to please?"

So this is a committee of people that are heart-centered, ideally.

They're asking questions in a caring way.

If this goes really smoothly, according to the process, it's a powerful,

powerful tool to help someone feel

better focused on the true nature of what's going on,

what choices they're making, and have a really complete sense of who they are.

Then the third method I've talked and

blogged and videoed about before, and that's Bohmian dialogue.

David Bohm is a physicist who came up with an amazing

idea of

implicate order in the universe--that everything can be considered to be

enfolded.

And sometimes it comes out again.

So you can imagine a can of paint, and you

drip a different color into that can of paint.

So you start with white paint,

drip a few drops of red, and stir it.

And if you stir very slowly, you're going to see that through time, you're mixing the two

colors up.

If you reverse that and watch the movie in reverse, you'll see that it goes back to

the original order.

So that's a basic fast-level idea of this implicate order concept. But from that,

David Bohm was a proponent of dialogue. and

And his idea was to get people talking from the heart, and

to really take time to listen deeply and fully

to each person speaking.

Once again... deep listening.

So these are three different methods

that are all outlined, actually not just in my blog,

but that article

is also included as a chapter in this book, "The Sacred Shift."

I wrote three chapters in this book.

One of them is all about deep listening

and shifting the world with deep listening,

and the other two have to do with raising children in this amazing world...

children that are very gifted and special

and have intuitive abilities.

The other chapter is all about ethics

and environmental

processes--the way to help businesses further

that are environmentally sound.

The chapter title is, "Ethical Ecological Economics:

Sustainable Prosperity."

So this is an outstanding book,

not just from my chapters, but also Steve Bhaerman's-- he is very funny and included.

Diana Cooper, Barbara Marx Hubbard, and many many others.

So until next time,

I hope that you keep asking my favorite question which is, "How good can it get?"

And you can ask yourself, "How good can it get when

I practice the art of deep listening

with my family and friends today?"

Until next time, I'm Cynthia Sue Larson with RealityShifters.com