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Do you have already-always listening?

This mysterious question comes to us from the long-lost annals of the est training, circa New York City, 1983. Decades ago, I sat in those rooms and learned some interesting things about the human psyche, one of which was this idea of ‘already-always listening’.

This would be how you pre-disposition yourself to react to someone or something. Such as ‘knowing’ how your partner will react to particular triggers, or ‘knowing’ how we ourselves are bound to respond in certain situations. You think you really know what will happen, right?

The idea is that our preconditioning sets us up to react to a situation in old, potentially outdated ways… before we can even become present and respond in the moment.

For actual reality often shows up differently than we expect. If we bother to stop and check it out.

Here’s an example of what I mean. For most of my life, if someone is waiting for me, I’ve run the always-already thought, “Oh my God! I’m keeping someone waiting… hurry up hurry UP! Get over there and be helpful NOW!

And these days, most often, that someone would be our 16-month-old German Shepherd/Belgian Malinois mix, Zephyr. Recently, I realized she needed an extra walk each day to burn up her copious energy, so I’ve been walking her at 6:30 each morning as the sun rises here in Oakland.

The first morning, I leapt out of bed and began tearing through the process of getting dressed. I moved fast, brushing my teeth, combing my hair, putting on my sunscreen so I’d be ready for our walk as quickly as possible.

Keep it moving, keep it moving, I chided myself. I was actually anxious that I was keeping the dog waiting. For in my always-already picture of things, I assumed she was pacing, desperate to get out and do her business. I could just see her, tapping her paw impatiently.

Perhaps, God forbid, she was even considering crapping on the living room rug!

And what was Zephyr actually doing this whole time? When I finally poked my head out of the bathroom door and looked at her, she was lying nearby, completely relaxed. Sleepily, Zephyr raised her head to look at me as if to say “…what?”

I smiled at myself then and shook my head, remembering that this is was just my pre-arranged wiring. It was one of the many harsh lessons I’d taught myself young to stay out of trouble.

In fact, in the reality of the here and now, I could slow down and breathe. The dog was fine and I could stop moving at warp speed.

The value of noticing your always-already listening is that you can catch yourself being hard on yourself– or on someone else. With this kind of awareness, you may notice that your shoulders have risen a full two inches in anxious anticipation. Or that your breath has sped up.

Then you can stop and ask yourself a great question. What’s going on right now? And you can even follow with the equally great question, What do I need right now?

The answer might be, I’m feeling scared. I don’t know what so and so will think. What if XYZ happens??

If you stop then, and just breathe for a moment and come back to yourself, you may notice that always-already listening simply evaporates. And if it doesn’t, you can always remind yourself that you may be triggered. And that your reaction might not even be accurate.

This can be especially helpful when assuming you’re heading into a fight with a partner or someone at work. Often our assumptions are wrong…so prepare to be surprised by what reality is actually serving up.

May this help you find your way to a greater sense of peace, presence and what Teal used to call ‘Just being’.

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