The Love That Listens
Mar 25, 2026Wisdom Tree Collective offers a rich variety of inspiring practices. And yet, some exercises that seem simple on the surface can quietly invite us to deeper places.
Recall a moment when you felt loved.
When I first tried this exercise, I was not able to connect with an experience of feeling loved. I don’t know why – I know there have to be thousands of times I’ve felt loved. So, I set it aside.
Yet, the next day I met with some ladies from the church that I’ve been supporting for the past year. Normally, we meet together for coaching, but on this day, we decided to only meet for a casual lunch and just enjoy each other’s company. I wanted to show up to this lunch and resist the urge I knew would come to coach them.
During our time together, I didn’t try to give them advice or help them see a different perspective.
I simply listened.
I joined the conversation as a friend might. When we were leaving, and each one was saying goodbye to me, at that moment, I felt truly loved.
It felt pure and uncomplicated, just one friend’s love for another friend, flowing freely in both directions.
I felt a fullness, a joy in my heart, a sort of insulation against the cold, harsh environment that we stood in as we said our goodbyes.
I felt connected and present during our time together, and it felt like time stood still – I kept looking at my watch, keeping an eye on the time when I should leave for my next appointment, but kept being delighted that I still had plenty of time.
I enjoyed basking in the beauty of each of these women, a beauty that I know I take so much for granted and forget to notice.
I experienced the love, the struggles, the pain, the insecurity of them showing up vulnerable and authentic, without the masks so many of us often wear.
And although I wanted to have the power to ease their circumstances, I released the need to do that, repeating silently in my head throughout our time together, “Just listen today.”
Watching them tenderly listen to each other’s personal struggles and share compassion, it was wonderful to experience all of these things.
Some of the words and phrases, emotions, and thoughts that come to mind reflecting on this experience are:
- The sharing
- Joining them on this journey
- Feeling welcome
- Feeling like I belong
- Not needing anything from them
- Not having an agenda
- Feeling a sense of equality, not needing to compare or not needing to see where I fit in the hierarchy of
- Knowing we’re in this together
- Feeling a deep sense of connection, not only to these women, but to what these women represent, the greater collective of humans all suffering some and rejoicing some
- Feeling as if I’m enough, as if we’re all enough
- No need to fix me or them
- It felt easy
- It felt light, not heavy
- Beautiful
- Life-giving
- Safe
- Unforced
- Uncluttered
- Authentic and genuine
Later, I realized something important.
It’s so easy to love someone who is there for you, someone who offers their help freely, makes you feel seen, heard, and loved, someone who listens and who treats you well, and treats you fairly.
It’s much harder to love anyone who brings their own baggage to the relationship and acts (rather humanly) from the influence of that baggage.
Someone who might not always listen, who might not always act lovingly, someone who might act out of hurt or anger or resentment. Someone who might be so in their head that they aren’t capable at some moments of seeing you or hearing you.
I wonder if what I experienced at that lunch offers in itself a quiet invitation. A reminder.
Perhaps love simply begins with presence.
Not having an agenda. Lying down our roles or our need to be helpful.
To trust that beneath the wounds and the defenses, there is something already whole, already worthy, already enough.
And maybe, this kind of listening doesn’t just allow others to feel loved.
It opens us to receive love, too.
~Jill Wright, WTC Graduate, Leadership Council Member, and Guardian of Financial Wellbeing (Treasurer)
Interested in how to be a more present and compassionate listener? Join our The Wisdom of Listening classes. Learn more here: Wisdom Tree Collective
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