Do you wish to have greater success and ease in any area of your life? Is your life out of balance? Are you feeling overwhelmed? What if I told you, “shut up and listen!”? Though this might sound rude, it might be the key and what you need to hear.
When you hear “shut up and listen” what does that invoke in you? Does it make you want to stop, listen closely, and take in what others are saying? Perhaps not. In spite of that though, I really want to encourage you to listen to what is in the silence. What are people saying when they don’t say anything at all? I also want to encourage you to listen to what you know – your inner voice – your intuition.
How often do you listen to someone else’s ideas about life instead of trusting yourself? We grab the latest self-help book and follow the instructions without asking ourselves if the advice will assist us personally or even tie into our own way of living.
Take a minute and ask yourself, what do I know deep down?
What if you started listening to your inner voice and intuition? Asking questions of yourself, about your choices and listening for your inner knowing and response. We have all had those occasions when we have a choice to make and we just know what to choose. We can practice that knowing by asking questions (even just silently in our head) and then shutting up and listening.
Allow silence to fuel your creativity. Through silence ideas flow and amplify. Build a creative space where you don’t need to talk. A space where ideas and possibilities are free to show up. We fill our silences with noise and stimulation and activity and then we can’t hear our own ideas and creativity.
Often, we are surrounded by negative people, and listening to them can be dangerous because then you begin to doubt yourself…which in turn diverts your attention from your goals and vision, as well as the available possibilities.
Here are 5 ways to practice the ‘Shut up and Listen’ technique:
1. Everything starts with asking a question.
Questions are empowering. Questions open up new possibilities and allow you to get new perspectives on things.
A simple question that is always helpful is, ‘What else is possible that I have not considered here?’ What have I not thought of yet that would change the situation?’ (and then listen…)
2. Follow the lightness of your intuition
No matter what people say to you, expect from you or want you to do, you always know if it works for you and is a contribution to you or not.
Everything that is true for you will have a sense of lightness. Anything that is not true for you and doesn’t match what you are aiming for will have a heaviness to it.
Start this tool in any situation of your life: when you read something, when someone talks to you, when you say something and learn to get a sense if it creates a lightness in your world or if everything contracts.
This is your compass and guideline for yourself, this is your intuition that a lot of people were never taught.
3. Avoiding filing your space with noise for the sake of it
Learn to get comfortable with silence within a conversation or when you are alone. How often do you fill any silence with words, music, tv or something else that takes away the generative, creative space you could dive into?
Create a space that nurtures you so you can enjoy silence and practice listening. Ask yourself what brings you freedom with silence. Is it taking a bath, walking in the woods, being with an animal, a 5-minute meditation, lying on the floor listening to relaxing music by Mozart or Handel, etc.? Train your ‘listening’ muscle by doing something relaxing every day for at least 5 minutes.
4. Have a strong relationship to yourself
Building up a strong relationship to yourself is based on the 5 elements of intimacy. The intimacy with yourself is the basis of all your relationships, creations and success. Intimacy is the place where you have no judgment of yourself or anyone else, total caring and kindness, which means the willingness to be there in a way that is nurturing and generative.
When you have trust, honor, allowance, vulnerability and gratitude for you, your relationship with yourself gets greater.
Trust is where you allow yourself to know and honor you with regard, whether anybody else approves of it or not. Vulnerability is the place where you can be who you are and not have to hide anything of you or need to be ashamed. Allowance is being the rock in the stream, where you don’t have to resist or react to anything, just let it flow by. Gratitude is to be grateful for you and your life and everyone that is in your life and everything that is showing up. If you live from these elements, freedom opens up for you, which gives you the ease to shut up and listen.
5. Never choose boring or irrelevant
How often do you keep listening to others, even when you feel bored, hoping that at some point they will say something valuable? Have you concluded or decided what is of interest to you? And, if you don’t listen intently you might miss the one thing that gives you the piece of information or nudge you’ve been asking for. Instead, you could ask, ‘what would make this fun for me?’ and then listen.
Of course, you don’t have to listen to me either! But…what if you did start practicing listening to you and to what creates and enhances your life and living? Shut up and listen!