We've all probably experienced the feeling at some point in our lives where we're talking to someone and know that they are just pretending to listen. The feeling of disconnect that this creates within us may be subtle but it's felt. Listening is a gift - when we give our full attention, we are in presence and attentive to anything that may emerge. And yet, in many of our modern cultures, the art of listening is a dying act whilst silence is endangered species. Learning to listen to ourselves, to each other and to the wider world is a practice we can all inhabit and a hugely rich and deep way of forming seen and unseen connections with ourselves and the world.

In this week's podcast, we talk about the inconvenience of listening, what it means to truly listen; why listening is so hard and what happens on a cellular level when we gift another person our full attention.

In this conversation we reference the following:

• The Listening Project - ThoughtBox (downloadable resources)
• The Listening Book - Robin Ticic, Elise Kushner and Bruce Ecker (book)
• Listening Abyss (image and concept)
• Interpersonal Neurobiology - Dr Dan Siegel (website)
• Silence & the presence of everything - Gordon Hempton (On Being podcast)
• His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman (book series)
• The Name of the Wind - Patrick Rothfuss (book)

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