As I sat on the outside looking in, as I usually do, to my occasional coffee gathering with friends, I realized that this time was different.  I wasn’t just watching my dear, lovely ladies talk.  I was being pulled into something true, honest and beautiful.

Typically after these gatherings, I’m left feeling a mix of emotions.  Both happy to be a part of a pack but also a little empty, often misunderstood or just an observer to conversations about the best skin products, what chemicals in our food are killing us, or the latest super food that’s going to save us all from this winter’s flu.

But this time was different.  At some point I realized that only one lady was talking, a rarity, and she wasn’t talking about yoga or chia seeds.  She was talking, in a matter of fact way, about her painful childhood.  It wasn’t overly emotional.  It was just the facts as she remembered them.

As she shared her past so calmly, I felt as if time was standing still.  A deep sense of bliss came over me.   I was intensely connected to her as each thought came to her mind and as each word fell from her lips.  My heart swelled with tremendous love as I experienced my own raw existence at the same moment I was experiencing hers.

The beauty of that moment, a moment where someone was recalling painful and uncomfortable memories, paralleled the awe of a breathtaking sunset or a spectacular mountain view.  How oddly beautiful!

As her story came to a close, she abruptly changed the subject and asked, “Have you ever heard of something called conscious listening?”  She had recently come across this topic.  She explained how the simple act of consciously listening to someone talk without any thought, judgment, or advice, was a type of spiritual practice.  This doesn’t mean refraining from advice or opinions, rather being stripped down enough that you actually don’t have the impulse for either, an important distinction.

Not only did this concept of conscious listening make perfect sense to me, but I was also experiencing it firsthand at that exact moment. So was she and we both knew it. We were tuned into the same space, a rare meeting place for human souls that can only be felt and not easily described.

In that moment of conscious listening, there was no motive or agenda.  Neither one of us was trying to be something, we were just being.  She wasn’t trying to tell a good story nor was she trying to evoke any emotion in me.  I wasn’t trying to be the “good friend” or the one with all the answers.  No one ever really has the answers anyhow.

We were just two souls, aware that we were both occupying the same space, plugged into raw truth. It was calm, peaceful, beautiful, and charged with an incredible energy.  I guess you could call that energy “unconditional love.”

Unconditional love is silent and still.  It is free of distractions, ego, and advice.  Our soul knows its path. It knows the direction it’s meant to travel and no one sitting across from us can advise it otherwise.

Next time you’re engaged in a conversation, just be, and patiently wait for someone to meet you there.  It will be one of the greatest gifts you ever give and receive.