by Stacey Wegley
Seven Generational Listening
Learning to be still and listen with your heart. Allow your heart to be the guide and do so with the best of intentions.
I was taught that learning to be a good listener takes practice to quiet the mind and lead with your heart. As an Indigenous woman I am walking in two worldviews. My mind often quarrels with my heart, so when it comes to listening with the heart and not my mind, it’s taken much practice. My elders taught me that we have two ears and one tongue, meaning we should take twice as much time to listen rather than speak. In my early life, it was common for me to listen to someone speaking and immediately begin forming my reply rather than listening with full attention.
by Stacey Wegley
While I attended Northwest Indian College, located on the Lummi Reservation in Washington State, we had to practice an exercise of intentional listening with our peers. This was to practice quieting the mind and truly hearing the being speaking to you. This practice exercise was done with two people, and each person takes turns telling a story with great detail for two minutes. The other person would listen without interruptions, and once the story was done, your partner would retell the story, recalling as much of the details in the story as possible. While it may sound simple, it can be challenging when we, as people, take less time to be still, listen, reflect, and learn.
I believe when we have the opportunity to listen with the heart, it allows us to be curious. I see curiosity as a means to broaden one’s understanding, to ask questions, and to uncover the layers of relations within yourself and those around you. I learned the importance of asking questions while engaging with my instructors and peers. I was told if you didn’t have any questions, my elder would say, “Oh, so you think you know it all so you don’t need anyone to help you grow!” This taught me that you aren’t supposed to know all the answers, and to be curious means to need each other. The teachings of building relations mean each person carries their own story or knowledge of understanding of the world. This allows us to learn to rely on each other and what it means to be a human being.
This leads back to listening with curiosity and how asking questions strengthens your understanding or ability to learn from each other. This builds mutual respect and relational accountability within communities.
In times when we live in a world where everyone is moving fast, it’s important to be still, listen, reflect, then speak
by Jennifer Bereskin
Human Rights Indigenous Advocate (Snohomish & Unangax)
