Listen to Yourself!!
“Listening is the oldest and perhaps the most powerful tool of healing.
It is often through the quality of our listening and not the wisdom of our words that we are able to effect the most profound changes in the people around us (& ourselves)."
Rachel Naomi Remen
The most influential relationship you have is the one you have with yourself. One side of this relationship is leading, the capacity to push ourselves, body, mind and soul in the direction of our goals, to choose the sort of thoughts, words and actions that represent the sort of person you want to be.
Another side is the capacity to listen.
Many of us who are working toward something meaningful practice leading. We learn to push hard, to overcome excuses to level up. This is an empowering process but if you forget to listen you can start to loose touch with your intuition and capacity to heal. This can lead chronic stress, fatigue, anxiety & burn out and rob you from being at your best.
To listen deeply is to go beyond the need to compulsively do more, to access your higher self, to tune in with the wisdom of the body and to connect with a spaciousness that can be profoundly freeing and deeply restorative and ultimately inspiring.
Many people think they can’t slow down and listen because their mind (and life) is too busy. This is precisely why it’s important to take the time to practice deep listening, so you can decipher the difference between excuses and reasons, signal and noise, when you need a rest and when you need to push. Training the capacity to listen means you’re less likely to full into compulsive reactivity and more able to step into calm, strong and wise responsibility.
The following meditation is a practice of deep listening to help you find space and clarity in a busy life and mind. This meditation invites you to observe the mind as it does it’s thing, busy distracted, clever, deceptive, silly, lazy etc - which, for most of us, is a very different way of relating to the mind.
It comes from “The Courage to Be” 4-week journey designed to help high achievers slow down, reconnect with themselves, and live with greater creativity, compassion and authenticity - if this is something your interested in respond COURAGE to this email.
TRY THIS:
Set a timer for the duration you choose to meditate (15 minutes is my recommendation)
Sit in posture conducive to meditation (spine long, body relaxed)
*Start by taking 3 - 5 belly breaths, tuning into the sensations of breathing in the body
*Shift your attention to your internal world of mind and emotion.
*Observe your inner world with curiosity, as best you can letting go of judgement.
*When your timer goes off take a moment to wish yourself well, to repeat some positive phrases like “May I be vibrantly happy and healthy
