Oh Yeah, and Listen to Your Body
- Image by suchitra prints via Flickr
It’s all about your attitude, that’s the difference between whether you will succeed or fail. So true. However how many of us listen to our body?
As part of the coaching and sales training I do, I talk about the fives levels of listening, as penned by Steve Covey
5 Levels of Listening:
- Empathic Listening – Listening/responding with both the heart and mind to understand the speaker’s words intent and feelings. Listen for what is not being said
- Attentive Listening – Paying attention, focusing on the speaker’s words/comparing to your own experiences.
- Selective Listening – Hearing only what interests you.
- Pretend – Giving the appearance of listening
- Ignore – No effort to listen
This relates to when we listen to others. However how often do you use these levels when listening to your body? Most of us, if we are honest with ourselves ,use selective listening, i.e. when it suits us.
When we are hungry, we eat, we listen to our hunger pans, or sometimes not. When we are thirsty, we drink, or even when we are not. When you have an important decision to make, or coming up to an important meeting, do you listen to what your body is saying to you? Part of my work with the Enneagram, studies the link between listening to your body and the mind.
The easiest way to start to listen to you body, is learning to listen to your intuition. The video below by Judith Orloff explains how you can do this.
A simple exersise you can do that shows you how the body ‘knows’ is this.
Think of something that you can’t make up your mind about, or an important decision you have to make. Hold out your arm horizontal to the ground and think of each choice, (you need a partner for the next part). Think of choice A, imagine it, feel it, be it, now ask your partner to try and push your arm down.
Now think of choice B, imagine it, feel it , be it, again ask your partner to push your arm down. Which was easier? Which ever your body resisted the most, is the path you need to go down. Your body will naturally be strong with the choice that your truly want to go with. Your hesitation will be around some fear, confidence, or self-belief around the outcome.
By listing to our body more, we learn to trust our instincts and intuition and thus make decisions with greater confidence.
Tags: Attention, Attentive Listening, Business, Empathy, Enneagram, Judith Orloff, Psychology, Sales, Steve Covey