Five Actions of Gift Listening

Listening as a gift follows where the speaker leads, tracks with him or her at every step, and sees, hears, touches, and sniffs what the speaker brings to mind. Gift listening is done by choice and requires personal courage and strength.

Listening as a gift empowers the other person to talk, by choosing to avoid, even jokingly, anything like put downs and insults, negative popular buzz words, and the speaker's personal defensive trigger points if known.

Listening as a gift waits while the other collects his or her thoughts, faces new insights, or deals with strong emotion; like sitting in front of a computer waiting for it to process. Gift listening chooses to devote this time to whatever shows up.

Listening as a gift trusts the other person to know or discover his or her own best next step. Gift listening guards this trust by offering no advice, no leading questions, and not even any interpretations of the other's thoughts, feelings, or situation.

Listening as a gift follows, empowers, waits for, and trusts the other. In all these, the gift listener also keeps safe, refusing to follow or wait in an unsafe place, or to empower hurtful actions, or to be held hostage to those who abuse the gift.

Copyright 2013 Wilma Zalabak