The Art of Listening

There’s something to be said for sitting down with a loved one and giving your undivided attention.  It’s the art of listening and it’s rarely practiced today.  How many times have you been talking to a friend or loved one while cooking, while doing dishes, while quickly looking down at your phone to either check a message or the score of a game while the conversation carries onward?

I raise my hand to all of these.  It takes an incredible amount of discipline to say ‘no’ to distractions, to say ‘yes’ to “right now, I’m with my sister, my mom, my spouse” and I want them to know that I am listening deeply to them, to what they have to say, to what or how they are feeling.  One of the best things about our company is that it is reigniting the gift of deep listening.  We ask you or your loved ones questions out of curiosity, interest and just plain wanting to know more.  It’s a beautiful thing when we so often hear from our clients, “Wow, no one’s ever asked me that before… or I’ve never told that to anyone”.  It’s not so much that people are divulging life-long ’secrets’, it’s more that, we live in a time when conversations around the dinner table, hours of the day when electronics are off, where a T.V. was in one room and that was the only room, where when you drove or flew in on a plane, what you did was in thought, conversation, reflection and mostly in the quiet of day or night.

ShineLight reminds us all that to carve out time with the people we care about is the best gift you can give.  It reminds us that being lovingly curious about peoples lives and how they feel matters.  ShineLight provides a service that calls us to prioritize feelings over stuff, and that quality time spent listening with undivided attention is worth more than we could ever know.