#67 - Healthy Ears

This week we will put out attention to our ears. There is much more than just taking care of the health side of this apparatus, but it's also about developing the crucial ability to listen.

We live in times where we are constantly surrounded by noise... Lucky conscious people who live somewhere far from all of this.

Our ears adapt to constant noise and we slowly lose the ability to listen to calming, slow sounds. Most of us live in really noisy places where the media have to scream only to get our attention.

Hearing loss is a gradual and very often unnoticeable process. Pay attention to the health of the ears so they will serve us for a long time. Get hearing check regularly. Observe if you have pain, eliminate the possible infections. (blockage, pain, discharge).

Hearing loss may result from genetic causes, complications at birth, certain infectious diseases, chronic ear infections, use of particular medications, exposure to excessive noise, ageing, injuries to the head or ear.

It's very interesting, once you will get used to calming, almost silent surroundings, it might be difficult or even physically painful to stay in loud places for a long time. And for those who aren't used to, it's unbearable to stay in silence for a long time.

Today we will sharpen the ability to hear and to listen, as well as we will build consciousness of how to let our ears serve us for betterment.

So this topic is divided to short subtopics like hearing and listening. In hearing we will discuss the physiological aspects of hearing, like cleaning ears and taking care of the noise impact. In the listening part, there will be a short article on why it is important to learn to listen and use our ears.

Have you realized that every (or most) spiritual path has listening at its base?

Traffic noise in a busy city is around 85 decibels (the measure of noise), listening to over 85 decibels for more than 8 hours can be dangerous. Over 85 decibels can be damaging.

You should be able to talk with someone near you without shouting. If you find it difficult to catch what others are saying, your ears hurt, you have muffled hearing afterward, or ears start ringing - all signs that environmental sounds are too loud.

Symptoms of hearing damage include:

• Ringing in the ears;

• Difficulties understanding words, especially against background noise;

• Need to turn up the volume on audio devices;

• Need to ask others to speak more slowly, clearly, and loudly;

• Muffled sound;

• Difficulty hearing high-pitched sounds;

• Trouble distinguishing speech consonants;

How to take care:

• Keep on practicing silent meditation regularly as it's one of the great ways to recalibrate ears, so you can hear 'quiet' again. That's a great way to give them a rest. Aim for 10-15 minutes of silence every day.

• Learn to enjoy background sounds around you - like washing machine, vacuum, coffee grinder.

• Relatively quiet place, close your eyes, and focus on figuring out what all the sounds are in your environment, both close and distant.

• Staying in too loud places for too long, or listening to loud music is one of the most common reasons for hearing loss.

• Aim for noise-canceling headphones, and/or earplugs.

• Usually, 60 % of maximum volume, don't use headphones for more than an hour for a time. Take short breaks around 10 minutes, its recommended 18 hours for ears to recover. Volume and duration matter, keep that in mind.

• We can use an earplug protector, you can keep it in your purse, especially important at loud events.

• Research if certain drugs may be harmful to hearing.

• Dry your ears after showering or swimming.

• Stay physically active. Strong health and circulation system helps to keep your ears healthy.

• If you feel pain or experience drainage from your ears - see a doctor.

• There are smartwatches and smartphone apps that can notify you when a healthy sound intake is crossed.

Some advices on how to properly clean ears.

• Don't use cotton buds - as you can push the wax deep inside causing problems.

• There are many doctors' opinions, one of them is that if you have healthy ears, you don’t have to clean them.

• If you suffer from a buildup of earwax, especially if it's dry and hard, causes pain, itching or blockage then is recommended to use an olive oil. The recommendation is to use 2 - 3 drops a day to soften the wax. Remember to warm it to body temperature. If you really need to clean it, is best to ask the doctor to do it by suction clearance.

• Ear Wax Candles - there is quite some controversy if it actually works as a way to remove ear wax. Some people say it might be dangerous, as candle wax can melt inside and cause damage. There are a couple types, beeswax - most traditional, there are also those with the plastic protector on the beginning, which might protect you from the melt. It's interesting, as after this therapy, usually deep relaxation occurs. If you decide on this therapy choose practitioner with years of experience.

My editor Madina got a creative spark. So she let the flow freely run and that's what she wrote for you:

We know that hearing is the ability to perceive sounds. Listening is perceiving and comprehending, and if trained not only good for deep understanding but also being able to sympathize or help.

Yes, sounds cause some reaction from a living thing in terms of feelings, mood, and other processes in our brain. Sounds can be emotionally triggering, connected to memory, and can even have a healing effect. And it's amazing how we are naturally equipped with a tool to be able to listen to a myriad of different sounds, music, various audio, and words.

Communication is one the main factors making humans whom we know in a modern developed world. But to talk we need to be able to speak. Also to get information or catch somebody's speech we need to be able to perceive the data either by hearing, or by seeing, or any other ways we have evolved so far individually.

That's why this course is about being conscious. Be conscious when you are listening, be conscious when you are speaking. Words can either give a life or take one. Not everybody understands how important the words are, words we throw at each other every day. How many voices we hear, how many words we understand throughout the day - that what creates our mood, that's what steers our life decisions. Can you imagine how the world and people in it would be if everyone would be conscious about what they perceive and what they give out? Think about it.

The main minor conflict causes, in my opinion, are:

- misunderstanding;

- closedness;

- fear of suffering (strongly connected to the ego);

- and other non-related to listening;

As in the causes, we'll just take a look at the misunderstanding part. It's when you hear your family members talking, and you participate in that discussion, however, you don't seem to understand the true meaning of their words. An example of this might be your mom telling you that you must stay home after dinner. You don't agree, you tell her that you're an adult and she can't tell you what to do by now and that you'll go anyways. Then arises a conflict between you, when you both feel negative emotion based on that. Then you walk out the door with her behind, feeling annoyed. But what she actually meant is that she is worried that it's late, and it might be problematic for your to get back home safely at this hour. And you, what you meant is that you understand that it might be problematic for you to get back safely, and you acknowledge that and that she has to trust that you're an adult now and could handle if the situation occurs. Or any similar events or arguments that might occur in everyday lives.

So what I'm advising you to do here is to listen to what a person is trying to tell you. So, in such cases is good to listen and not to hear the words coming out of one's mouth. Then the resolution will be calm and positive aftertaste, rather than close ones in different rooms in bad moods.

Closedness is the way of being closed to hear the other perspective, the other person's side. So basically it's about saying "we hear what we want to hear" and not what is actually said or meant.

We are all different, we have different ways of communicating - totally individual cases, and people who know us are used to that and vice versa. And some people are just closed, closed like a child holding their hands up covering the ears, trying hard to not listen or hear something they don't want to. In fact, you might have someone in mind who has this kind of personality whether if it's a grumpy grandpa or a nosy neighbor, or you are one yourself.

The point here is to start listening and opening the ears. Start from yourself, conduct a survey or research on yourself when communicating with others.

• Are you conscious about how do you behave in a discussion?

• Do your words sound louder muting all of the others?

• Do you interrupt often?

• Do you interrupt to add something or give feedback?

• Do you want to listen to what is being said?

• Are you in rush to say your side of the story?

• Do you rush to start talking about your side of the story?

• Do you feel like you need to reply?

There are many ways that you can approach in order to be heard by "closed" people in your surrounding for better, it might require you to repeat yourself more than hundred times even. What you need and will use is patience. Listen to the reply without interrupting even if you heard the same reply for the last month. Then start asking more, even if you know the answers, ask more details or "why" question. Then they start questioning themselves. Just ask yourself why are you talking to such person? Why are you engaged in the particular conversation?

If you are close-minded, then be conscious about it and see if you want to improve that really, or not. If you have someone like that, consider if you want to change them actually, or not? If yes, why? Do they want to become more open?

Personally, I find that being open-minded and moderate it with balance is one of the keys to succeed in life. It opens up opportunities, it lets you widen your vision and hearing, which consequently would lead you closer to your dreams. You would improve your charisma, be more intelligent and interesting, and there will be limitless sources to explore, experience, change, grow and get to know.

Fear of suffering of ego. This is interconnected with closed, or narrow-mindedness. When we are afraid to face the truth, or we are not ready yet, so we close our ears tight, shut our eyes down, and only the mouth is screaming out loud about how we are the only truth, and we are always right. Do we need to be always right? Why? It's the situation when a person knows what emotions he is feeling, but their ego won't let them open up and start learning. Open eyes and see a little further than their own nose, hear more than less, and perceive information in any way it is.

"I'd look like a fool if I say that", or "Everybody's going to laugh at me" sentences describe emotions or fear of being humiliated in front of others. But it's all right since it doesn't come with big harm. It's passing by moment, everyone would be too busy to think about it over the time. So the only thing getting hurt here is our egos. It's another topic to be able to laugh at ourselves. The point here is, we don't listen to good advice sometimes because we're terrified to be humiliated, know that it's okay. It's just happened psychologically that we all think about ourselves, everything about ourselves is more interesting to us, it's all about us.

You have been doing this course for so long so you might be familiar with ego, since you are becoming more conscious about many things. The way you're doing this course is already proof that you are moving forward, you are open to new information, you want to grow spiritually.

So abstract subjects like shame, blame, envy, greed, and other negative concepts dissolving from your mind. And you have, or at least on your way to having the peace within you that won't let your break down yourself. When someone throws at your something in the style of: "shame on you, you haven't bought an expensive crocodile skin bag like I did, so you're broke and not fancy for me. And I'm rich and proud, you're poor and looser" it wouldn't bother you. Even though you hear these exact words, you would listen to the person desperately trying to overcompensate something, or trying to fill the emptiness in their heart, and you have empathy. Because the peace inside you is so strong, that you don't need anyone's approval, since you filled your heart with concepts way positive than those of "low vibrations." You are a grateful, loving, and balanced individual, who knows that you definitely don't need a crocodile to die for your joy. As you remember that your joy is not caused by harm or damage to something else, especially a living. Also, you are conscious about what you buy, and the decisions you make are based solely on your own inner motivation to become better.

As in the lyrics of the song "Listen to Your Heart", you listen to your heart. In order to hear it, you should lower the noise and get used to silence. In a calm and quiet atmosphere you can hear better, consequently can listen to more important information. More important voices reaching out to you, like those of your loved ones.

From this week become more conscious about the noise which you are surrounded by, greatly decreasing exposure.

Spend more time in complete silence and let yourself love the lack of sounds.

Don't assume that hearing loss is just for older people. Hearing loss is an increasing problem for younger individuals due to exposure to loud sounds via headphones. Dear parent, educate your children. Serve as an example ;)

Remember, regular doctor check-ups are recommended to spot the problem at the early stage.

Exercise listening to your peers, colleagues, children, parents or anyone who you spend the most time. No interrupting, just listening. Of course, giving feedback and responding, give reactions, but most importantly - hearing. Minimize speaking, maximize observation and listening.

Easy tip is to be aware of your hearing, remember to express gratitude for that wonderful perception available to you.

Clean the tool, take care of it, treat it well and with respect.