“We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.” TS Eliot

A little while back, I wrote about speaking with “your true voice”. We know we are using our true voice when what we say reflects and expresses who we truly are and what really matters to us beyond our small-self needs, worries and dramas.

For most of us this does not come naturally. It is not something society or our education system really values or teaches us to do. It requires, at least initially, a specific intention to communicate in this way and needs us to bring our attention to what is going on inside us. However, I have come to recognise the value for me when I do this and I also deeply value the gift when others speak to me from the same place.

Thanks to some wise and intuitive friends, I realise that so far I have only written about one part of the whole, one part of the exchange that is communication and connection. When we speak, it is always in the context of relationships. In discussing the notion of speaking with your true voice, I had focused on our inner experience, understanding who we truly are and what really matters, and on bringing that to our relationships with others.

For those who wish to deepen their ability to relate, it is important to recognise that there are other parts to relating and communicating for which you can hold yourself accountable. Speaking with your true voice is one part of the exchange. Taking responsibility for congruence between your words, your feelings and what you do is another.

Listening with a “true ear” or deep and true listening is the other part of communication for which you are responsible. Deep listening is about more than just hearing the words. People communicate what matters to them in ways that go beyond what they say. Non-verbal communication and subtle information is always present in any exchange.

And we need to remember that we all automatically and unconsciously filter the incoming information, making our own generalisations and assumptions. It is easy to be distracted from deep listening.

If we fully open to listening and receiving, there is a lot more information available to us. It seems to me that by being awake and developing our capacity for truly receiving what is being communicated, we create an opportunity for genuine understanding and connection.

We cannot receive anything if our hands are full. If we come in to the house with our hands full of the grocery shopping, and someone greets us with a freshly poured cup of tea or coffee, we have to put down our groceries before we can receive the cup (the gift). Similarly, it is difficult for us to effectively, deeply receive what another is trying to communicate unless we first put down the baggage that we are carrying.

When I think of deep listening, I immediately think of the teachings of Thich Nhat Hanh, Vietnamese Buddhist monk and Nobel Peace Prize winner. I would like to share this excerpt from his writing.

“But if you are full of pain, full of anxiety, full of projections, and especially full of prejudices, full of ideas and notions, it may be very difficult for you to practice deep listening. You are too full. And that is why to practice in order for you to have space, to have freedom within, to have some joy within is very important for deep listening.”

And so I have come back to where I first started. And I discover an invitation for me to improve my relationship with myself, which is what speaking with my true and authentic voice is really all about.

So, to grow your abilities to relate, to improve any relationship and deepen your significant relationships, begins with deepening your inner experience. It begins with improving your relationship with yourself because that connection determines the quality and depth of all your connections, all your relationships. It determines what you bring to the world and what you receive from the world.