Greetings.

We offer these podcasts freely and your support really makes a difference.

To make a donation, please visit tarbrock.com.

Welcome again friends. It really is good to be together.

I thought I'd start by just naming a compelling question that so many people I know around the globe are reflecting on right now.

And that is what will bridge the divides?

And I know, you know what I mean. What will bridge the divides?

I mean, what will help us humans evolve beyond our separate cocooned realities that end up creating so much distrust and fear and violence?

In this talk, what I'd like to do is focus on one key way each of us can contribute to evolving consciousness,

to evolving our own consciousness and our species consciousness.

And that's cultivating our capacity for deep listening.

I mean, just imagine if people from different political parties and groups and nations in conflict actually did a little bit of training in practice so that they could

a little bit more listen to each other.

To get some sense of being able to look through another's eyes, which Henry David Throde described as the greatest miracle possible really to look through each other's eyes,

it is possible though. And we have this built-in capacity to listen and we can cultivate listening.

And of course, it is difficult.

So for starters, I thought I'd give you a couple of examples of the kind of challenges we face.

The first cartoon that I'll tell you about, there's a couple sitting together watching TV and she's saying to him,

you know, you only hear the things you want to hear and he responds,

a beer sounds lovely. Thank you.

The second cartoon, job interview, the employer is asking,

well, Mr. Jeffers, where do you see yourself five years from now?

...