Learning To Listen

Excerpts from the chapter "Learning to Listen" in  Love Without Conditions:

'Learn to be present with your experience. I'm not saying "try to figure it out". '"Being with" is not an analytical activity. Indeed, recognize that you cannot figure your experience out. You can either be with it or intellectualize it, which of course is an escape.'

'There are times when external reality simply closes down around you and the only appropriate place to go is within.'

'When you refuse to take time to be with your experience it seems as though you are a victim of what happens in your life. That is a great self-deception.'

'The truth is that life is neither blessing you nor punishing you. It is working with you to help you awaken to the truth of who you are. It (life) is giving you constant feedback and correction but you do not choose to listen.'

Questions to consider from the reading:
'Why am I going through this transition time?'
'Is there something in my focus that needs to change?'
Answers: I am going through this transition time to unlearn the belief that I do not belong anywhere. My early life experiences led me to believe that I was unwanted, that I did not belong anywhere, that I would always be shunted to the side, shunned, ostracized. And so the world has often reflected that false belief back to me. This is the time to rewrite the script; to choose God's truth of who I am and whose I am instead of the ideas of my miseducation.

I need to focus on all the ways in which God has proven this belief to be false. I need to stop judging myself for my seeming inability to move forward in life. I need to instead focus on all the ways I have helped people and all the ways people have helped me. I need to express gratitude for the experiences God has given me that prove my ego wrong.