May
8
Women’s Conference–Learn to Listen, Listen to Learn
Filed Under Personal Light, Written by Emily
I needed this one! It was interesting that the two speakers took very different approaches to the topic. The first spoke on listening to the Spirit in our lives and the second spoke about listening to our own inner voice.
Suzanne Petersen
- She told a story about her girls going on a road trip and having a huge problem with the car’s alignment. She explained that to be properly aligned the tires need to be perpendicular to the road and parallel to each other. She likened this to our souls and how we need to be properly aligned, with heaven and with those in our lives.
- What are the symptoms of spiritual alignment? How do we keep aligned? With our head, heart, ears, and hands.
- The head won’t hear anything the heart does not want to understand. The head will learn tomorrow what the heart learns today.
- Write a letter of the burdens you carry (those things you can’t change) that sap your spiritual energy and then give it to the Lord–surrender those things! It is a tactic of Satan to try and get us to take these things back after we have surrendered them. Be consistent in letting Him keep them.
- Often our prayers are of three sorts–Fix it!, Find it!, or Remove it! How can we be more open to communicating with the heavens?
- How does the Lord answer prayers?
- 1. The Lord will strengthen you. She shared a story of her emotional condition in the midst of her awful divorce. She would pray for strength to do what she needed to for 20 minutes. Then she would get up, set a timer and work. When the timer beeped she would return to her knees and pray that same prayer again, continuing until she got the things done that were required of her.
- 2. He will soften hearts–others and our own. He will help us see the love of God for those we are angry with or hurt by, and He will help us feel His perfect love for us. This charity will change us!
- 3. He will send someone to help us. She shared the story of a friend bringing her a gift labeled “BDB–Bad Day Box.” Inside were special things that could help lift her, cheer her, and invite humor when she is having a bad day. What a great idea! I need one of those!
- 4. He will lead you away. Listen to the Spirit and the promptings to flee.
- 5. He will remove the problem. This is the one that we ask for the most but that happens the least!
- We can hear it, know it, and feel it, but it does us no good if we don’t DO IT!
- WE can do hard things (their family motto). We–us and the Lord.
- Enjoy the journey–stop to help others.
Elaine Walton
- She used the metaphor of music–an orchestra. Musicians must listen to other musicians and themselves to stay in tune and create harmony.
- Harmony in our lives is elusive. Why? We expect too much of ourselves, we are impatient, and we listen to too many external voices.
- How can we listen with focus?
- 1. Shut out the voices that are irrelevant, inappropriate, or untrue. Tune in to the ONE voice that matters. “My sheep hear my voice.” We learn to hear His voice by spending more time in the scriptures. The scriptures give us centering points through the stories they tell of how real people learned to have the attributes of courage, faith, determination, forgiveness, etc.
- 2. Learn to listen to your own voice. 90% of the helping process (in counseling) comes from listening to ourselves, and yet we so often forget to listen! And, likewise, the most beneficial thing we can do to help others is to just listen and reflect back what they are saying so they can learn their own answers. We are so often concerned with what we are “supposed to do” to help solve the problem that we just forget to listen. We need to practice using feeling words to reflect back to others. “I can see you are very dissatisfied with how things are going. Tell me more.” or “You seem very discouraged!”
- Real listening requires you to tune out the unhelpful voices in your own head.
- You have to listen to your own notes (voice) to know if you are in tune.
- Learning to listen to our own inner voice is so important. The more our hearts are changed the more our inner voice will mirror the promptings of the Holy Ghost.
- Does most of my teaching come from within or without?
- In discounting our own inner thoughts and feelings we lose our sensitivity to those promptings.
- Take time to listen, think, and give a measured response.
- Reconnect with your inner voice. Make a list of all the times you have a thought about your needs–anything starting with “I wish…,” “I would like…,” “I want…,” or “I need…”. Be aware of what your inner self is trying to communicate to your conscious self. The more sensitive we are to the little things, like needing a drink of water, the more in tune we will be for the bigger things.
- Do I choose the hard road or the natural path? Life doesn’t always have to be hard. If we are listening to our inner voice we will be lead in the most natural path.
- Are we so focused on who we think we are supposed to be that we forget who we are. Tune out the opinions of the world and tune in to your true voice.
- If your larger desires are good, your smaller desires will follow as good–trust yourself.
- Triangle of truth–the scriptures, the prophet, and your feelings from within. Seek to have those three be in harmony.
- The Spirit of the Lord invites to do good, love God, and serve Him. That is the pure and simple way to judge if our inner voice is on target.
Good stuff! The ideas they discussed are so important to our daily walk in the Light! I love the concept of tuning into my own inner voice! May the Lord bless you on your journey!