Deep Listening: While You WAIT

Words shape the sacred space of spiritual direction, but so does silence. In a previous post, W.A.I.T.: Why Am I Talking, I explored how intentional restraint helps companions create spaciousness for Spirit. This post is the other side of that practice: what happens while you wait.

If W.A.I.T. teaches us when and why to speak, Deep Listening teaches us how and to what we attend.

Listening Beneath the Words

Deep listening is more than hearing. It is a contemplative posture, receiving another’s story with heart, body, and spirit. It invites us to notice tone, rhythm, silence, gesture, and what stirs within ourselves as we listen.

In Buddhist mindfulness, this is “listening with beginner’s mind.”
In the Christian contemplative tradition, Benedict calls it “listening with the ear of the heart.”
Indigenous and Pagan wisdom remind us to listen to wind, water, stone, and silence as teachers.
In Quaker practice, we “listen beneath the words” for the movement of Spirit.

Each path points toward the same truth: listening itself can be prayer.

Drawing by Hawthorne Post

Listening With Your Whole Self

When you are fully present, your body participates in the listening. Breath slows. Muscles soften. Attention widens.

Before speaking,  or even forming a question, pause to notice:

• What sensations arise as your explorer speaks?

• What emotions ripple through you?

• What happens in your breath and belly as silence deepens?

Your body’s wisdom helps you discern whether a response serves the seeker or your own comfort. This is deep listening in action: grounded, embodied awareness that keeps your voice aligned with sacred purpose.

The Threefold Attention

As you listen, you are attending on three levels:

1. To the Explorer: their words, emotions, and unfolding meaning.

2. To Yourself: your interior reactions, intuitions, and resonances.

3. To the Holy: the subtle movement of Spirit within and between you both.

Holding awareness of all three creates a living triangle of presence. None are ignored; all are received with reverence.

Practice: Listening Beneath the Words

During your next session, experiment with this contemplative practice:

1. Take three deep breaths before your explorer begins to speak.

2. As they share, silently repeat, “I am listening.”

3. Attend to your body as well as their words.

4. When you notice silence, let it expand instead of filling it.

5. Afterward, reflect:

   • What did I hear from my explorer?

   • What did I hear from within?

   • What did I hear from Spirit?

Listening this way is active, though it may appear still. It builds the inner spaciousness that W.A.I.T. protects. Together, these two practices, W.A.I.T. and Deep Listening, create a rhythm of speaking and silence, giving and receiving, that allows the sacred to emerge naturally.

Beloved, you are whole, holy, and worthy.

— Rev. Amy

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See Also These Posts

• W.A.I.T.: Why Am I Talking – Explores common pitfalls in spiritual direction and how to cultivate presence instead. https://abeltaine.blogspot.com/2025/05/wait-common-pitfalls-in-spiritual.html

• Communication Theory in Spiritual Direction – A deeper dive into the psychological and spiritual foundations of listening and presence.
    https://abeltaine.blogspot.com/2024/01/communication-theory-in-spiritual.html

• The Heart of Spiritual Direction – Introduces the foundations of spiritual direction, highlighting presence, sacred listening, and the call to honor seekers as whole and holy. https://abeltaine.blogspot.com/2025/02/the-heart-of-spiritual-direction.html

• I-Thou: Pronouns and Invitation in Spiritual Companioning – Offers reflection on relational language and its impact in spiritual direction. https://abeltaine.blogspot.com/2025/05/i-thou-pronouns-and-invitation-in.html

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For Further Exploration

• Oliveros, Pauline – Deep Listening: A Composer’s Sound Practice – A contemplative and creative approach to awareness through sound, silence, and presence.
https://deeplistening.rpi.edu

• Palmer, Parker – Let Your Life Speak – Explores how deep listening to self and Spirit reveals authentic vocation.
https://couragerenewal.org/let-your-life-speak

• Palmer, Parker – A Hidden Wholeness: The Journey Toward an Undivided Life – On creating “circles of trust” where deep listening, silence, and inner wisdom can emerge.
https://couragerenewal.org/a-hidden-wholeness

• May, Gerald G. – Care of Mind, Care of Spirit – A classic text on the director’s inner stance: silence, presence, and discernment.

• Barry, William A. & Connolly, William J. – The Practice of Spiritual Direction – Explores how silence and the director’s interior response open the way for divine encounter.

• Harrow, Judy – Spiritual Mentoring: A Pagan Guide – Grounded wisdom on compassionate language and presence within Pagan and earth-based traditions.

This Heart of Sacred Tending series is ©2025 Amy Beltaine, all rights reserved. You may freely reprint any blog post, website, or print resource. Simply include the following attribution, and if you print online, make the link at the end live: 

Article ©2025 Amy Beltaine, all rights reserved. Reprinted with permission. This article and hundreds of others, along with other free resources, are available at http://www.AmyBeltaine.info