Practicing the Sacred Art of Listening: A Guide to Enrich Your Relationships and Kindle Your Spiritual Life

by Kay Lindahl

Overview

Poor listening leads to misunderstandings and lost opportunities.
Learning to listen well requires spiritual practice.

It happens at work and at home, with strangers and close friends, in heated debates and in quiet conversations—you hear someone speaking, but often you don’t truly listen.

Kay Lindahl’s highly respected workshops are attended by people from a broad range of backgrounds. Her first book, The Sacred Art of Listening, has been published to acclaim in North America, Europe, and Asia. Now she offers practical, easy-to-follow advice and exercises to enhance your capacity to listen in a spirit-filled way. Using examples from her own life and her work as a teacher of the sacred art of listening, Lindahl explores the nature and use of silence, reflection, and divine presence as foundational qualities of listening and shows you how you can apply these in your everyday life.

This valuable workshop-in-a-book examines the varied ways we are called to deep listening, including:

• Contemplative listening
• Reflective listening
• Heart listening
• Listening in groups
• Listening in conversations … and more

You will find yourself inspired to discover how different your conversations will be when you stop just talking and start really listening.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781594734588
Publisher:	Turner Publishing Company
Publication date:	06/20/2012
Series:	The Art of Spiritual Living
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	176
File size:	662 KB

About the Author

Kay Lindahl, the founder of The Listening Center in Long Beach, California, is author of How Does God Listen?; Practicing the Sacred Art of Listening: A Guide to Enrich Your Relationships and Kindle Your Spiritual Life; and The Sacred Art of Listening: Forty Reflections for Cultivating a Spiritual Practice. She is co-editor of Women, Spirituality and Transformative Leadership: Where Grace Meets Power.

Table of Contents

Introduction

1. What Is Listening?
2. Contemplative Listening
3. Reflective Listening
4. Heart Listening
5. Opening Space for Listening
6. The Impact of Listening
7. Listening in Groups
8. Listening in Conversations
9. Daily Practices
10. Frequently Asked Questions

Appendices
I. Guidelines for Practicing Centering Prayer
II. Listening Stick Exercise
III. Principles of Dialogue
IV. Interfaith Café

Notes
Selected Readings
Websites to Explore
Acknowledgments