The Art of Listening: To Trees, To People, To Ourselves

What if listening is a way of belonging, to the world around us, to those we love, and to the quiet truth inside ourselves?

Out in nature, everything feels quiet, the wind, the quiet falling of each leaf, the presence of an old tree… they all have something to say if we are silent enough to hear it. And it made me think, what if listening isn’t just something we do for others, but a way of being with the world? With people? With ourselves? 

Lately, I’ve been sitting with that question. Because listening, in its realest form, can be uncomfortable. It can bring up what we’ve been trying not to feel and what we are trying to avoid. But I’m learning that it’s also one of the deepest ways we come back to connection. Whether it’s through the steady presence of a tree, the quiet truth in someone’s voice, or the tension we carry within ourselves.

Listening to Trees

Some days, I simply sit under a tree, and it feels like it’s listening to me. Not with words, but with presence. It holds space. Other times, I lie down next to them and stay there for a while, watching the way it moves with the wind, how the leaves fall in their own rhythm slowly and effortlessly, how the tree just seems to love being part of the natural world without needing to do anything. It breathes, it lives, and it listens through its stillness.

Trees teach me to slow down, to just be.

This reminds me to slow down. To just be. When I allow myself to really be with a tree, I realize how much of life I rush through. How often I abandon the present for future planning. How moments can quickly pass by. Trees teach me how to be still, to trust the process, and to stop filling every space with effort and noise. They show me that simply being, without needing to do or fix is enough.

Listening to People

Listening to people can be harder. It asks us to leave our own heads for a moment. To pause our thoughts, our stories, and actually be with someone else. It asks us to stop performing understanding and to truly offer presence.

To pause our thoughts, our stories, to actually be with and listen to someone else.

I’ve noticed that sometimes I respond just to fill the silence because silence can feel uncomfortable. Or I say something because I think I should, or because I want to sound helpful or insightful. But I’m learning that we don’t need to speak all the time. And that someone’s story doesn’t have to be neat or inspiring to be worth listening to. Messy stories, half-formed feelings, or emotional truths, they all deserve space.

Most of the time, people aren’t asking for advice. They’re not looking for a fix. They’re simply hoping someone will stay with them in it, not change it, not judge it, but witness it. The quiet assurance that says “Hey I’m here. I may not have the answers, but I care.”

Listening to Ourselves

Then there’s the listening we do inwardly which might be the most difficult of all. The quiet inside us is not always peaceful. Sometimes it’s heavy, loud, or confusing. It reveals the feelings we try to push away: grief, fear, anger, longing, exhaustion. But when we finally slow down and listen, we begin to come home to ourselves in a way nothing else can offer.

The more we built trust within ourselves, the more that trust becomes a foundation for everything else.

Our bodies are always speaking to us through fatigue, tension, restlessness, desire. Our hearts speak too—in longing, discomfort, or that small whisper that nudges us toward something more honest or alive. The problem is, we often override those signals. We keep pushing. We keep distracting ourselves. We silence what we don’t want to feel.

But listening to ourselves doesn’t mean fixing or figuring everything out. It just means showing up. Holding space for what’s there. Letting ourselves feel what’s real. It’s about giving that same presence inward, the kind that says, “You don’t need to be any different right now. I’m with you.” The more we practice this, the more we build trust within ourselves. And that trust becomes a foundation for everything else.

A Different Kind of Listening

Real listening asks us to be with the truth, to truly hear. It’s a posture of humility and openness. It needs us to drop our judgments and our expectations of others and ourselves.

When we listen to trees, to people, and to ourselves, we begin to remember that everything is in relationship, that we don’t have to carry everything on our own, that we can share our burdens, our stories, our hard truths with the natural world, with those we trust, and within the safe space of our own awareness.

And you don’t need special tools or the perfect setting to practice listening. You can start by finding a quiet spot—under a tree, in conversation with someone you trust, or just sitting with yourself. Whatever it is, may you meet it with honesty, with compassion, with acceptance.

We belong in this web of connection, nature connection, human connection, and the one with ourselves. We belong and we always have.