Listening differently.

My father always encouraged listening.  It was an emphasized value growing up — it was expected, modeled, and reinforced. Actually, it was more than a value in my household, it was a principle for anyone who entered our home.  The principle.  Yet, with all the ways the importance of listening was instilled in us, I don’t recall anyone ever asking how to listen, or exploring what it meant to listen. Or the different ways a person could listen.

As I got older, my listening skills developed in the traditional sense.  I could be present, responsive, compassionate.  I learned how to nod at the right times, reflect back what I heard, process what others said with care, ask the right follow-up questions.  But I noticed something else: my ability to act on my intuition was becoming difficult to access. I was listening better to others — and less to myself.

There’s a difference between listening to respond, and listening to connect.  There’s also a difference between listening in the traditional sense and listening to your inner voice.

The first time I really remember listening to that voice, it was quiet — but certain.  I had just experienced the deep loss of my first child.  Law school was beginning, across the country.  Everyone around me said to stay.  Stay near your family.  Stay near support.  Stay grounded in what’s familiar while you grieve.

But my inner voice said: Go.  Go explore yourself in this hurt.  Go explore all the life that still remains in this world.  Go deeper, because there’s more.  Your story doesn’t end here.

So I went.

And my inner voice — that whisper — was right, and I’m so glad I listened. That move didn't just change my life, it cracked something inside me open.

After that, new opportunities to listen kept presenting themselves.  I didn’t always follow that voice, but I noticed that when I did, Beautiful things happened for me. Brilliant connections formed.  Clarity emerged.  Prayers were answered.

The more I honored that voice, the more I learned how to listen — not just in the way I was taught, but in the way my soul needed.

I began listening differently.

See we’re taught to trust the noise. To take our cues from calendars, deadlines, job titles, institutions, and what everyone else is doing. We’re trained to listen outward — even when our inner voice is begging for a moment to speak.

Now I love my father and his principles, but something new inside me required a different kind of listening.

Not for approval. Not out of fear. Not to conform. But to align.  To remember.  To return.

For me, it meant closing tabs and opening windows. It meant choosing soft over strategic. It meant telling the truth when no one else needed to hear it but me.

And listening differently isn’t just about hearing better.  It’s about tuning in to the frequency of YOU.  The kind of listening where your body shivers when it’s a yes.  Where your heart tenses when it’s a no.  Where silence becomes instruction.

And if you are a woman, a Black woman, a mother, or a creator — this kind of listening becomes a portal.  A liberation.  Because we’ve been told for so long that what we know is not enough.  That we must prove, perform, and perfect.

But the deepest knowing doesn’t ask for performance.  It just asks for your attention.

So I’m learning. Practicing and learning — to trust what I hear when my eyes are closed.

To let that be enough. To unapologetically turn down the noise so I can hear my own voice.

What would shift for you if you listened differently?

What might you hear if you redefined what it means to truly listen?

Jamielah