What You Are To Be, You Are

The Elements In A Relationship Which Seem Impossible To Share, The Secretly Disturbing, Dissatisfying Elements, Are The Most Rewarding To Share. This Is A Hard, Risky, Frightening Thing To Learn, And It Needs To Be Re-learned Over And Over.

When I Can Relax, And Be Close To The Transcendental Core Of Me, Then I May Behave In Strange And Impulsive Ways In The Relationship, Ways I Cannot Justify Rationally, Which Have Nothing To Do With My Thought Processes. But These Strange Behaviors Turn Out To Be Right In Some Odd Way. At These Moments It Seems That My Inner Spirit Has Reached Out And Touched The Inner Spirit Of The Other. Our Relationship Transcends Itself And Has Become Something Larger.

I Hear The Words, The Thoughts, The Feeling Tones, The Personal Meaning, Even The Meaning That Is Below The Conscious Intent Of The Speaker. Sometimes Too, In A Message Which Superficially Is Not Very Important, I Hear A Deep Human Cry That Lies Buried And Unknown Far Below The Surface Of The Person. So I Have Learned To Ask Myself, Can I Hear The Sounds And Sense The Shape Of This Other Person's Inner World? Can I Resonate To What He Is Saying So Deeply That I Sense The Meanings He Is Afraid Of, Yet Would Like To Communicate, As Well As Those He Knows?

We Think We Listen, But Very Rarely Do We Listen With Real Understanding, True Empathy. Yet Listening, Of This Very Special Kind, Is One Of The Most Potent Forces For Change That I Know.

I Believe I Know Why It Is Satisfying To Me To Hear Someone. When I Can Really Hear Someone, It Puts Me In Touch With Him; It Enriches My Life. It Is Through Hearing People That I Have Learned All That I Know About Individuals, About Personality, About Interpersonal Relationships.