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Your Relationships

Your Relationships

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Life is other people. We are social beings. What we think or feel or do is embedded in our connections to others.

Listening is the key to deeper and more natural human relationships in every area of your life. When you listen deeply, other people find themselves becoming open to what you have to say.

You need to bring other people to an understanding of what you have to give.

And so the foundation for all personal development is listening.

We listen with heart and mind, tuning into other people and their situations. As a result, there are fewer misunderstandings, less conflict, and less wasted effort.

What I have to say about human relationships is summed up in two practices – close listening and quiet assertiveness.

There are seven sections in this part of the site –

  • The way of the listener speaks about listening in a personal and poetic way
  • Close listening describes the art of listening in simple and practical terms
  • Quiet assertiveness talks about the vital need to stand your ground, both for your own sake and for the benefit of others
  • The laws of encounter presents four general conditions under which the combination of close listening and quiet assertiveness is likely to be helpful in any relationship
  • Simplified listening describes an ascetic or purified listening, which has many uses, especially in extreme human situations
  • Listening sensitivities invites you to develop specific sensitivities, through which your listening will become more and more subtle and finely responsive, and
  • The situation as a whole is about inviting the person to whom you are listening to sense the whole thing, rather than any part of it.