Great gift of deeper spiritual awareness in yourself is the ability to find your way back to that awareness

Great gift of deeper spiritual awareness in yourself is the ability to find your way back to that awareness when you've lost track of it. As you feel more centered in the sweet sensation of clear spirit inside you,
you'll naturally become more adept at finding your way back to that sensation when it gets overshadowed by the sock and awe of daily living. The word spirit is derived from words that mean "breath" in ancient languages. Like your breathing, your spiritual essence is always there
nurturing you, even when you're sound asleep. Being in the grip of ego-centered listening, on the other hand, is a little bit like dozing off. When your ego is busily defending you, you're out of touch with the feelings and spiritual essence of the other person...as well as your own. Like nighttime slumber, this "ego sleep" is natural and normal and probably hëre to stay. It's best to make friends with it and forgive yourself in advance for drifting into it, since you'll be more likely to
forgive others who drift into it while they're listening to you.

As you grow more secure in feeling your own spiritual essence, you'll
probably doze off less into the grip of ego-centered listening. Give
yourself plenty of loving acceptance for it, though, because we can tell
you from much experience that criticizing yourself for these catnaps is no
help at all in making you doze less. In fact, beating yourself up for
slipping into ego-centered listening has about the same positive effect as
a dog chasing its own tail.

As your ability grows in spirit-centered listening, you'll learn to love
and accept yourself more and more. That's because the spirit holds
everything in its embrace, including feelings, needs, old patterns,
slip-ups, and recoveries. As your awareness of your spiritual essence
grows, you'll be less tempted to grab onto an unpleasant emotion or an old
pattern of defensiveness. It just won't feel as good to do it anymore - it
will feel much better to rest in the sweet sot of spirit, and from that
place of spacious embrace to hold lightly all the comings and goings of
your ego.