EP 43 – What Listening Really Means 💜 (And Why We Feel Unheard) Explained by Neuro-Shine Technology™
23 Oct 2025 · 20 min
Dr. Shiny Unsal AI (Shiny Minds podcast) explains that listening is an executive, identity-shaping activity defined as making others feel heard. The episode outlines consequences of poor listening—unmet human needs, loss of trust, relationship disconnection, and reduced self-worth—and links listening to neuroplastic change (using a placebo analogy and a metaphor of entanglement). Practical guidance includes four core practices: 1) "empty your cup" (set aside self), 2) "mental follow"/embody the speaker's perspective, 3) interact with validating, nonjudgmental phrases, and 4) explicitly ask how the person wants to be heard (e.g., silence, questions, or problem-solving). Episode closes with a coaching prompt and calls to share/subscribe.
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Do you ever feel like people are quote, unquote, listening to you, yet you don't feel safe, you don't feel heard, and you don't feel appreciated? If you said yes, this episode is for you. And then we're going to talk about what listening truly is. You're ready? Let's begin. Are you ready to shine? Come on. It's a shiny one. You got this. Welcome back to the Shiny Minds show. This is Dr. Shiny. I am the proud creator of my academy of neuroshine technology, this Shiny Minds show, and my life's purpose on making people shine inside out. And today, I want to talk about what listening really is and what it really is not. Because I believe we all sort of suffer from not feeling heard. Anybody out there, can you relate? I know I'm not the only one. I know you. Whoever is listening to me, my dear shiny mind, you, during the day, feel. Feel kind of unheard, kind of unappreciated, not understood, not seen, even not safe sometimes. Is that right? I know it is right. Because this is the world that we live in. This is the time that we live in, and this is the problem that we need to solve together as human friends. I believe this is such a huge problem that we don't even realize the damage that we are making to each other. We don't realize that the cost of it, the consequences of it, because it is unseen. You know, there is a saying that whatever you can measure, then you can manage. If you're not able to measure, meaning if you are not seeing it, if you are not understanding it, then how are you going to manage? So for that reason, I wanted to break it down to you. How you can measure, how you can see the costs and the consequences of what is being done at the energetic level when we are not listening to each other and making each other feel heard. I'm going to talk about the cost, the consequences, and I am going to talk about some examples, and I am going to give you some solutions. So my goal today is to first, start by talking about the definition of listening. And second, give you the consequences of not listening to each other and turn give you some examples. And fourth, I want to give you techniques and some practices, some tips to listen to each other and make each other feel heard. And I'm going to ask you a coaching question at the end so that you can make each other feel hurt. All right, so let's begin with the definition of listening. So as I teach my coaching skills to my coaching students, I talk a lot about the power of listening. And then there is a coaching skill that is called active listening. I'm sure you've heard about it somewhere. If you haven't, now you're hearing is about a skill set where the coach listens to the client what exactly they are saying, but mostly for what exactly they are not saying. What are the things that they may not be aware of in their tonality, in their body language, in their energetic field, what are they looking at? Right. So what is really listening? So listening all comes down to this overall mental high level, executive mental activity to understand somebody, to understand a human being with all their psychological, mental, emotional and spiritual components. And so that's why listening goes beyond active listening, beyond an activity to understand somebody. In my definition, listening equals making people feel heard. Yes, I believe, and I am very, very romantic about it, I believe the moment we make each other feel heard, feel seen, feel appreciated and feel free, we are going to evolve as humanity. Mic drop. That's it. That's what I believe. So now that we have this equation, listening equals making others feel heard. Let's talk about the consequences of what we are creating as we do not listen to each other. Consequence number one, we are dismissing each other's core human needs. So what do I mean by dismissing each other's primary needs? Well, we are humans and then we do need human touch, we do need human sense, we do need human laugh, eye contact, anything that can be shared and exchanged with humans, we need them. When we are not listening to each other completely, fully, wholeheartedly with our full nervous system, we are not taking care of this need, we're not fulfilling this huge need. And then we have this emptiness inside. When this need is not fulfilled, it's empty inside. And then that's how we go about our days. This is how we interact with each other. This is how we show up with each other. This is how we try to cope with our life. Knowing that there is this emptiness, but knowing at an unconscious level, not conscious level, that's unconscious and that's the big consequences. That is the biggest consequence. Because it's unconscious, it's unseen, it's not measurable. That's the biggest one second consequence of not listening to each other. So this second consequence is actually related with the first consequence. What happens when your needs are not met in a relationship? You lose your trust. Right. Again, it begins unconsciously. You don't realize it. Until you realize it, you kind of start feeling a little bit weird about the whole thing. And the next thing you know, you are Questioning everything. Next thing you know, you're not sure anymore. Next thing you know, there's something inside of, yeah, I don't want to go see that person. Next thing you know, there is this intuition telling you not gonna open up. I'm not going to tell her about how I feel. Why bother? She's not gonna make me feel hurt anyways. Get the feeling that's what happens. Slowly but thoroughly unconsciously and unfortunately, this is what happens when we go about our days, our lives, our relationships unfulfilled and with our needs unmet. We get disconnected. Disconnected. A little bit further away. A little bit further away. And next thing you know, relationships fall apart, connections loosen up, hearts get cold. And that's a very big problem because we lose trust, and then we are not in harmony anymore. That's a huge problem. The second consequence that comes after the first consequence is a huge problem, because then the third consequence of not listening to each other or in my language, not making each other feel heard is that we lose our confidence in ourselves. We doubt ourselves. It becomes an internal thing. It becomes this, Am I worthy? Do I deserve to be heard? Do I deserve to just be understood? Am I good enough to request that? Who can relate? I know I'm not the only one. I know you feel it that way here and there in your life, perhaps every single day. That's a huge problem. All these consequences are all psychological, mental, emotional problems that create things. Financial and spiritual problems. And that's why we have relationship problems. And then we sit down and then we wonder, why is it so hard to create a life that is in harmony? That's why. Because the root cause of everything is we don't understand what listening really is. So now that we talked about the consequences, I want to bring a little bit science to this situation. Because listening goes beyond just hearing information. Listening goes deeper into our psyche, deeper into our nervous system. And when you look at it from neuroscience perspective, there is obviously neuroplasticity that is happening at the very subatomic particle level, at the quantum level, like even, like quantum physics level, because every single information in the universe that we are taking in as we listen, as we interact with that information, as we form a relationship with that information, we become entangled with it and it shapes us. It changes us through neuroplasticity. Just like the placebo effect. You know, you take the pill, but it's a sugar pill. But you don't know that it's a sugar pill. So your belief and your fate that you're taking the Pill, and then pill is going to heal you, actually heals you. So it's not the pill actually that is healing you. That is the belief that the pill is going to heal you. So that's the whole thing about how belief is super strong. And that's where we need to start when we are looking at the entire activity of listening. Because it's more than activity, it is an identity shaping phenomenon. There, I said it. As we listen to each other, as we receive each other as information in the quantum field, like ones and zeros, we are shaping each other. We are giving each other a chance to be. We are giving each other the autonomy to speak from authenticity, from heart. And the science here in listening is all about combining the information flow in the universe and then categorizing it in a way that we can recognize, in a way that we can positively entangle in the quantum entanglement from the quantum physics and quantum mechanics. For those of you who want to do a deep search about that. So that when we are entangled with each other, then when we have this positive relationship with each other, then it all comes back to us and it makes us whole again. Because, oh, I am able to create this amazing relationship with this person and then I am able to also build another positive and healthy relationship with this person. This information is making me whole again. That information is making me whole again. This relationship is making me whole again. And next thing you know, the more we have more healthier and more secure relationships in our life, the more confident we become, the more one and whole we become inside. And it's about life and it's the magic of life. The whole listening serves the purpose of you becoming one within yourself. Scientifically speaking, it goes deeper than just receiving information. It makes you the ultimate being that you want to be. So how do we listen? Let's talk about some tips right now. Whenever I teach listening, I start with this. It's not about you. So when you are listening to somebody, here is what I am going to recommend. Do a mental follow. Here's how it looks like a friend of you is sharing their story about what happened at work. As you're listening to them, your job is number one, empty your cup. Meaning forget about what you're doing, how you're feeling, and what you need in that moment. Just rise above your own consciousness and step into your friend's consciousness and then become them. Second, you want to enter into their mental world. You want to embody their consciousness, their awareness, their perspective. So if they're sharing that, oh My God, at work there is this manager and who told me this and then who made me feel like this and then, and then I went ahead and I did this. Like literally become them. See the world through their eyes. Visualize this manager over here, this conversation over there, this activity that they're doing. Like see the whole entire story from their eyes. That's how you can do the mental follow. And then as you are doing the empty the cup mental follow. Third step is to interact with them. Like give them words, give them phrases to show them that you are hearing them, you are understanding them. Something like, oh my God, really? Wow. How did that make you feel? Yeah, if I were you, I would also perhaps feel like that or something like, oh, what an interesting reaction. So anything that you can come up with, just not judgy way in a positive, neutral and encouraging way. That's what we need from each other. We don't need each other's judgments, we don't need each other's problem solving. We just need somebody to make us feel heard and get excited. If the story is about excitement, get sad. If the story is about sadness, get a little bit also deep. If the story is about deepening and going cosmic galactic in my language, just step into their consciousness. That's it. But it is so hard. I'm just literally experiencing this pain in my life, myself, with my relationships with, with my mom and with my friends. Because it is also our responsibility. You know why we suffer? You know why we don't feel heard? Because we don't know how to make each other feel heard. And also we don't know how to request to be heard. What do I mean by that? Let me break it down. Number one, for us to make each other, make the others feel heard is what I told you before. Like empty your cup, get into their consciousness, interact with them, give them the phrases to be at their frequency. Right? Non fixing, non judging, non approving. That's that just show up for them. And second, requesting how you want to be heard is about. Okay, I actually now am going to talk about something super important. So can you please drop your phone and be fully present with me? And I don't even need you to like solve this problem because I already sold it. Just listen to it until the end and then ask me questions. Or perhaps you pre frame and then you say listen. At this point I am super emotional and I would love you to hear me out. Just don't say anything. Just listen to me. I just need to be heard. I want to hear my own Thoughts. And as I do a monologue with you, as you just sit and listen to me, I'm going to hear myself out and that's going to be enough for me. And perhaps at the end I can ask you to share how you feel. What do you think about. But let me just talk, do my own monologue first, okay? So you gotta be super clear about what you need. But we are not clear, right? We don't really request it from each other and that's a problem because we don't know what to say, we don't know what to request and that's a problem and that's why we don't feel hurt. I'm right there with you, okay? I am the one experiencing this problem, especially with my mom and with some of my friends, because I'm not requesting it. So it's on me if I am not requesting it clearly, hey, here's how I want you to listen to me. Here's how I want to feel heard in this moment. If I am not clearly requesting that, how am I going to just put the blame on them? It's not on them. They are just doing the way that they, they always do. Listening, right? Nobody told them otherwise. Nobody requested anything else or nobody thought that. Nobody showed them, nobody instructed them, nobody pre framed them in my language. So then who are you to blame, right? We got to start with ourselves. We got to hold our own responsibility, we got to come from. Okay, we are now going to start a conversation. In this conversation, here's where I am, here's what I need, and then here's how we can make it a delicious conversation because I figured this is how I want to feel heard in this moment. What a mindset shift, right? That is what I am going to share with you as my recommendation. So let me just sum up everything that we discussed. First of all, listening equals making people feel heard. Second, we talked about the consequences of not making feelings each other hurt. Like we're damaging each other. We are costing and living with unmet needs. We are having relationship issues, losing trust with each other and then losing confidence and worthiness within ourselves. So as a solution, I'm recommending you to A, empty your cup and B meaning like forget about yourself. And then B the second step is to step into the other person's consciousness, their frequency. See the world through their eyes so that you can do the mental follow and their story and then see. The third step is to interact with them. Give some words and some phrases to show them that you are listening to them. And you are hearing them and then making them feel heard. And then the last thing now I am going to recommend to you is to ask them, okay, how do you want me to listen to you right now? Do you want me to just stay quiet and give you my beautiful smile? Do you want me to interact with you and ask you questions? Or do you want me to solve your problem? Or do you want me to offer some ideas, some opinions? How do you want me to listen to you? That's the final step. And I believe in this final step. We're going to make each other feel heard. And that is going to be the real definition of listening with neuroshine technology. I hope this episode helped you, served you. So now you do have a framework to take home and practice so that you can feel heard and then make others also feel heard. Share this Video this episode with someone who needs to be heard, who wants to be heard, and then, of course, subscribe for more videos just like this. Thank you, my dear shiny minds, for allowing my light enter into your neurons and your heart. And until next time, keep shining your light. Then you're in the right place. Let's go. Let's go.
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