Each of us holds a quiet superpower. It sometimes looks like silence. It always looks like presence. Our common superpower is this: we can all choose to listen to understand.

 

This sounds simple, yet it's surprisingly hard to do. We carry so much chatter in our heads - our own stories, assumptions, and responses. It's tempting to trust our internal narrative, to stay comfortably inside what we already think we know.

 

But as the Dalai Lama reminds us: "When you talk, you are only repeating what you already know. But if you listen, you may learn something new."

 

When we choose to set aside our own thinking, even briefly, something amazing happens! We create space for understanding that wasn't there before. We discover what we didn't know yet. We get to understand what is going on for another person. Not what we assumed, but what's actually true for them.

 

Bring your full presence to your conversations today. Notice when people seek you out and decide to share something with you. How generous! They decided to open themselves up and trust you with what's on their mind.

 

Listen to understand what they are really saying. What are you learning about them that you didn't know before?

 

That understanding is where connection deepens. That's where we can truly support one another.