“Deep listening is miraculous for both listener and speaker. When someone receives us with open-hearted, non-judging, intensely interested listening, our spirits expand.” -Sue Patton Thoele

I have never been much of a listener. I have always used my ability to articulate as a way to know myself. I am a fast thinker and am often onto the next idea while half listening to the people I love most. I have been working on my listening skills for a long time, although most of my work comes in the form of apologies in the moments when my unskilled ears and deliberate tongue intrude and bring both misunderstanding and shame in its wake.

Read the rest of this entry »

“I know that you believe you understand what you think I said, but I’m not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant.” -Robert McCloskey

Again I am facing the painful awareness of the places where I continue to fall short in my capacity to relate. The ability to communicate at home, at work, and in life is a strong barometer and predictor of our success in the relationships that matter most to us. Our relationships thrive or fall victim to our willingness and capacity to disclose and listen to the people we care for.

Read the rest of this entry »

“I celebrate myself, and sing myself.” -Walt Whitman

I have been reflecting on half a year of positivity questing this week. Trying to organize what I have learned in this time and trying to marshal it to step up when, even now I can forget how to be positive. Happily because I talk about it so much, when I can’t quite get there, I have many reliable reflectors in my family to remind me where to look

Read the rest of this entry »

“Oh, the comfort – the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person – having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words, but pouring them all right out, just as they are, chaff and grain together; certain that a faithful hand will take and sift them, keep what is worth keeping, and then with the breath of kindness blow the rest away”. ~Dinah Craik, A Life for a Life, 1859

Without question the best days in my life are the ones where all the relationships work. We give each other enough space so that the annoyance factor is low, we lean in close enough to feel listened to, we spare each other the sarcasm veiled in jokes. Everyone feels valued and doesn’t have to prove anything. Having people around you to share your day-to-day life with is a fundamental need for happiness. We are not solitary creatures and connection on a screen does not feed the nervous system.

Read the rest of this entry »

“When I was a boy, I thought scent was contained in dewdrops on flowers and if I got up the morning, I could collect it and make perfume.” -Oscar De La Renta

The most underrated sense that we have is our sense of smell. Whether it is the smell of food at the ready, fresh flower blossoms on a tree or the scent of someone leaning in to kiss you, our sense of smell wakes up one of the most primary functions in the brain. Where we process scent in our olfactory bulb is actually built into the limbic structure of the brain where memory, sexuality and emotion is located.

Read the rest of this entry »

“A journey is best measured in friends, rather than miles.” — Tim Cahill

I don’t know of a sweeter experience than finding yourself at home with friends that you haven’t seen for a time. I love basking in the warmth and welcome that doesn’t need to be said because it is so deeply felt. I also love the freedom to speak your mind without hesitation, knowing that they get you. And the feeling of time running together even if it has been a year or more since you were last together, feels like yesterday. The connection is continuous and there is no warming up necessary to dive deep with friends.

Read the rest of this entry »

“Everyone who wills can hear the inner voice. It is within everyone…….The only tyrant I accept in this world is the still voice within.” -Mohandas Gandhi

I have been spending a lot of time lately trying to get quiet enough to hear my inner voice. Actually it is the only thing that I am really interested in hearing lately. Culturally we are not particularly attuned to listening long enough to get through the distortions and static that cloud the stillness where the voice lives. It takes time to get through the layers of voices that are continually running through our minds.

Read the rest of this entry »

A good way to begin committing to the work of serious gratefulness is to fall into your body. I love bodywork. I had a remarkable therapy appointment with a woman who practices dynamic cranial sacral therapy. There was an intense massage clearing and then she held me at the top and base of my spine. The rhythm of my cranial fluid reset and I was still. It was truly remarkable.

Read the rest of this entry »

“Before you know what kindness really is, you must lose things, feel the future dissolve in a moment� only kindness that raises its head from the crowd of the world to say it is I you have been looking for and then goes with you everywhere, like a shadow or a friend.’ -Naomi Shihab Nye

The Future feels like it is dissolving around me lately: dreams dissipating, relationships abruptly ending, and young people overcome by their possibilities, or lack of them, are taking their own lives. This is what my days have been full of. One has only to pick up his or her local paper to bear witness to the loss and struggle that characterizes the lives of so many. We are collectively awash in things lost and running as fast as we can to re-imagine a future, any future.

Loss and the stages of grief that accompany it are universal. Little by little, beneath the anger, denial and depression, our sorrow carves the unbelievable into our psyche, making the grooves in our brain expand to accommodate what our hearts cannot hold. This is the truth of deep sorrow; it changes us bodily if we allow it. Refusing is no good; although it is unfortunate no prizes are ever awarded for the mighty efforts made to resist our own pain. The resistance becomes its own storyline, which the Tibetans call ‘shenpa.’ This is the places where loss hooks us, and rather than actually experience the depth of our sorrow and pain, we devolve.

Read the rest of this entry »

‘Confidence in the goodness of another is good proof of one’s own goodness.’ -Michel de Montaigne

Many relationships suffer from a lack of self-esteem. A relationship’s self-esteem is connected to that of the partner’s but it also has a life of its own. Genuine esteem is founded in the courage to see oneself truly, both the positive and negative aspects of who we are and how we function and malfunction in the world. This path, which the Buddhists have called the path of the warrior, instructs that even through struggle and difficulty, we thrive in the openness of true knowing and seeing. The courage to confront the brittle edges and the messy corners of our own life and how we relate to others offers its own reward: acknowledging our brokenness is also the gateway to our ability to bear witness to our own basic goodness.

Read the rest of this entry »