Walking up to the noisy road with my headset audio playing, suddenly the audio faded into the background as I pressed the walk button on the light, and the noisy traffic surged into the foreground.
I lost my place in the audio training, and missed information. I had to “re-wind” and restart the training from where last remembered; from where I left off.
Two of the five powers you were born with, your power of attention and your power of interest are what largely account for “selective hearing.”
When we become more interested in one thing over another, we can “eliminate” the other–or even everything else–from our experience. This is done by focusing, narrowing, and contracting our power of attention on one thing, to the exclusion of everything else.
Unconscious selective hearing causes trouble
In the case of the traffic, it was more important to pay attention to it rather than the audio recording. People have been killed “tuning out” traffic by focusing on something else. These powers are also often used unconsciously to “tune out” noisy children or an upset person. In the case of the latter, we are then not really hearing them, and can miss something important.
Rather than developing the habit of shutting down and tuning someone out, if we open and really hear the other person, we can resolve things, once and for all. Discovering what the five powers are and how they work is the first step towards taking conscious control of them.
Learn about all of the five powers you were born with and Alchemy.