I have two sisters in my life. They are not actual siblings but they are my blood, sweat and tears. The blood is family, the sweat is big laughter and then there are our tears that we know, between us, can run freely and safely.
My daughters are the next generation of sisters and in such brief time, have generated much blood sweat and tears between the three of them; sometimes caused by one another..
My sisters are amazing and they inspire me everyday. Their voices are soothing, healing, loving and true. Sometimes their voices are busy and full and others, they are plain and without much to say. Sometimes, their voices are filled with a void and that is when I know they might just need me on the receiving end. To just be whatever it is that they need me to be. No judgement, no criticism, just unconditional support and sisterhood.
My sisters know that I love them. I love every quirky and cool piece of what makes them special and unique and searching in this world. I too am right there with them searching..... wondering.... We must be related for we are all one in the same, but carrying out such different journeys. Some might want to compare one to the other - as people compare siblings, naturally - but we are not to be compared. Not until you spend some time in our individual shoes. We are as much different as we are the same.
The sameness allows us to be a safe place for one another. We've got each others' backs and backsides when we fall on our faces (as we do...... regularly).
The differences that are our lives are pretty neat too. There is no upping the other when it comes to dramatics - we are all equally high maintenance.
So here is to my sisters: Thank you for walking with me now, last week, and as we move forward into the great unknown. We all walk with our childrens' hands in ours now. We are mother sisters now. But we are still the same girls that we've always been. I will walk with you as we walk onward. I promise you. We know that there is an end far far away and that we - being us - are going to pull up our boots/ stilettos / sneakers and strut onwards and make the most of the long long windy road ahead. Come what may, we'll take it. And we are never alone.
Tuesday, November 22, 2011
Monday, August 15, 2011
Goodbye Papa
He reached out to Sabrina on his hospice bed. She was sitting next to him and asked him how he was.
This was 2 weeks before he died.
He reached out with his right hand, his left side didn't work anymore, and he stroked her hair and said quietly - he had hardly a voice left:
"You're my special girl".
Sabrina looked at Papa and she held his arm and said "Papa, your my special boy". And we all laughed. Papa and Sabrina included. Me and mum too. Your Anne, our Nan, our mum - she's the strongest woman in the world. She is an inspiration.
You wer fine to us just before the Easter long weekend, and diagnosed with imminent death shortly after. The following 3 months were dark. But we held on for dear life. We held onto him with all our might.
July 26th, it all ended. With peace and love and family and ......... sadness .... and honour and respect and hope. Hope that he is in a better place. Knowledge. Knowing that he is gone and in a better place.
The grieving is on.
We all are touched by you Papa. Pops. Dad. Craig.
Your girls are good and loved and you loved them and they love you. When Layla looks up and sees her angels, you are now one of them. The head of the pack.
You actually make her giggle that much more loudly. I know she sees you bright and clear
Gone. But never forgotten.
Love never dies
This was 2 weeks before he died.
He reached out with his right hand, his left side didn't work anymore, and he stroked her hair and said quietly - he had hardly a voice left:
"You're my special girl".
Sabrina looked at Papa and she held his arm and said "Papa, your my special boy". And we all laughed. Papa and Sabrina included. Me and mum too. Your Anne, our Nan, our mum - she's the strongest woman in the world. She is an inspiration.
You wer fine to us just before the Easter long weekend, and diagnosed with imminent death shortly after. The following 3 months were dark. But we held on for dear life. We held onto him with all our might.
July 26th, it all ended. With peace and love and family and ......... sadness .... and honour and respect and hope. Hope that he is in a better place. Knowledge. Knowing that he is gone and in a better place.
The grieving is on.
We all are touched by you Papa. Pops. Dad. Craig.
Your girls are good and loved and you loved them and they love you. When Layla looks up and sees her angels, you are now one of them. The head of the pack.
You actually make her giggle that much more loudly. I know she sees you bright and clear
Gone. But never forgotten.
Love never dies
Monday, June 27, 2011
Tribute to My Mother & Father In Law
Irish Marriage Blessing
May God be
with you and bless you.
May you see your
children's children.
May you be poor
in misfortunes
and rich in blessings.
May you know
nothing but happiness
from this day forward.
Mum and Pops - Happy 47th Wedding Anniversary. You are the best couple I have ever known. The best parents I have ever seen.
I am so proud to be your daughter-in-law. You are remarkable people and have given me so much love.
Hang in there Pops..... we are with you all the way.
You are the best.
Love Guru
NOTE: written back in January - held onto it, now it's ready to go out. All we need is love......
I am going out on a limb to channel my inner love guru to write this piece. Consider that a head's up... this one could go anywhere.
Valentine's Day is not a day that I put much stock into. This year, I am. It's a day to play up the love, all the love towards everyone everywhere.
There has been a lot of talk about love swirling around me lately, Troubles, heart aches and woes in the love department. I'm getting the sense that the whole lot of us - you, me, our friends and neighbours are struggling a bit or a lot with our lovers. Lovers - scary word. I hesitate from using it because it makes me think of actors making out on TV and the intense need for me to turn away and go wash my eyes out with soap while repeating holy thoughts in my head.
Marriages are in question. We're doubting and questioning our happiness with our life partners.
I am unsure but it intrigues me.
Here are my two cents:
I think that people and relationships have evolved separately from one another. People have a purpose and then there is the purpose of our marriage / partnership. We check in regularly with our individual purpose, while in our relationships - as those relationships settle - they become routine and happen and function almost in autopilot
.
Men hunted and gathered while women kept home and nurtured - it was a sensible balance and it works and then attachments happen within that framework. At the end of the day, the tired men and nurturing women cuddle up for comfort and good feelings. Sex makes sense and feels good and makes the babies to make the world go round. It is all so practical. Feelings are a natural by-product of all of this practicality and togetherness.
It's not like that now. Intimacy is foreign. Intimacy is super charged when we first meet and all that chemistry, then of course it will too settle. After that, the rest of it, it isn't so black and white.
After Sunday School I went to see a movie by myself - which is perfect because then I don't have to share my popcorn with anyone and I can chew really loud. So I went to see Blue Valentine. Several people told me that it is sad/depressing/will leave me blue/don't go see it alone or you may jump off the bridge kind of thing. Well you know, it wasn't that sad. At the end I didn't feel like crying. It was a movie depicting a couple as they as individuals experience love and marriage.
But you know I still reflect on that movie, on the sadness that runs through it .
I'd like to say that it is all good stuff, it is all learning and that love is great. Not the love for our gadgets or for our favourite foods, shoes, shops, things. But feeling - loving good feelings - it is great! The world really isn't changing, people aren't getting busier - we need to experience our sensations a little more and pay attention. What am I hoping to leave you (and me) with? To know what you need and you'll behave in ways that will bring about getting your needs met. We rule that; if I want to feel love and loved I will pay it all forward first. Instead of wishing for love, give it.
Right now, I need to tell a certain someone that I love him.
I am going out on a limb to channel my inner love guru to write this piece. Consider that a head's up... this one could go anywhere.
Valentine's Day is not a day that I put much stock into. This year, I am. It's a day to play up the love, all the love towards everyone everywhere.
There has been a lot of talk about love swirling around me lately, Troubles, heart aches and woes in the love department. I'm getting the sense that the whole lot of us - you, me, our friends and neighbours are struggling a bit or a lot with our lovers. Lovers - scary word. I hesitate from using it because it makes me think of actors making out on TV and the intense need for me to turn away and go wash my eyes out with soap while repeating holy thoughts in my head.
Marriages are in question. We're doubting and questioning our happiness with our life partners.
I am unsure but it intrigues me.
Here are my two cents:
I think that people and relationships have evolved separately from one another. People have a purpose and then there is the purpose of our marriage / partnership. We check in regularly with our individual purpose, while in our relationships - as those relationships settle - they become routine and happen and function almost in autopilot
.
Men hunted and gathered while women kept home and nurtured - it was a sensible balance and it works and then attachments happen within that framework. At the end of the day, the tired men and nurturing women cuddle up for comfort and good feelings. Sex makes sense and feels good and makes the babies to make the world go round. It is all so practical. Feelings are a natural by-product of all of this practicality and togetherness.
It's not like that now. Intimacy is foreign. Intimacy is super charged when we first meet and all that chemistry, then of course it will too settle. After that, the rest of it, it isn't so black and white.
After Sunday School I went to see a movie by myself - which is perfect because then I don't have to share my popcorn with anyone and I can chew really loud. So I went to see Blue Valentine. Several people told me that it is sad/depressing/will leave me blue/don't go see it alone or you may jump off the bridge kind of thing. Well you know, it wasn't that sad. At the end I didn't feel like crying. It was a movie depicting a couple as they as individuals experience love and marriage.
But you know I still reflect on that movie, on the sadness that runs through it .
I'd like to say that it is all good stuff, it is all learning and that love is great. Not the love for our gadgets or for our favourite foods, shoes, shops, things. But feeling - loving good feelings - it is great! The world really isn't changing, people aren't getting busier - we need to experience our sensations a little more and pay attention. What am I hoping to leave you (and me) with? To know what you need and you'll behave in ways that will bring about getting your needs met. We rule that; if I want to feel love and loved I will pay it all forward first. Instead of wishing for love, give it.
Right now, I need to tell a certain someone that I love him.
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
no title - just read
The results of the 2 year old MRI came back. Her brain is continuing to show a few irregularities. Particularly the back of her brain, area affecting vision. There is a section of her spine that is filled with fluid - another anomaly.
The doctor asked us if she is generally a happy child and we said yes, very proudly. Pushing us through the pain of her state of affairs.
The next day I snuck out of the house at 6:00am to go to an early morning yoga class. The teacher had us moving through postures to the point of resting us in child's pose where we curl into ourselves, curl into our heart. Here I inhaled into my chest ribs and belly as to inflate myself, and then teacher guided us to exhale slow long and steady - releasing what is of no use to us to move forward and to move better.
I exhaled the question "why?" I let it run down my back like water. And I continue to use this technique while breathing when I am standing, walking or sitting. Breathing out the word why in my mind over and over and over.
When experiencing any loss or pain, there are things that we just can not come to terms with. Asking the question why - I can not come to terms with this and asking it of myself and to the universe is really painful and debilitating.
Breathing in what I need and releasing the feelings that I don't need is helpful on the other hand. Not to mention that choosing to live with the pain side of the fence takes the energy away from my holding her up and being the extension of her limited body.
2 years later and I am still motivated to write about my sadness, I am still typing and emoting.
She has the body of a small 2 year old and some abilities of a 6 month old. After telling me this so very kindly, the doctor extended his hand to reach mine and told me that I'm a really good mother to her. Thank you for saying that to me. I'm trying my best.
The doctor asked us if she is generally a happy child and we said yes, very proudly. Pushing us through the pain of her state of affairs.
The next day I snuck out of the house at 6:00am to go to an early morning yoga class. The teacher had us moving through postures to the point of resting us in child's pose where we curl into ourselves, curl into our heart. Here I inhaled into my chest ribs and belly as to inflate myself, and then teacher guided us to exhale slow long and steady - releasing what is of no use to us to move forward and to move better.
I exhaled the question "why?" I let it run down my back like water. And I continue to use this technique while breathing when I am standing, walking or sitting. Breathing out the word why in my mind over and over and over.
When experiencing any loss or pain, there are things that we just can not come to terms with. Asking the question why - I can not come to terms with this and asking it of myself and to the universe is really painful and debilitating.
Breathing in what I need and releasing the feelings that I don't need is helpful on the other hand. Not to mention that choosing to live with the pain side of the fence takes the energy away from my holding her up and being the extension of her limited body.
2 years later and I am still motivated to write about my sadness, I am still typing and emoting.
She has the body of a small 2 year old and some abilities of a 6 month old. After telling me this so very kindly, the doctor extended his hand to reach mine and told me that I'm a really good mother to her. Thank you for saying that to me. I'm trying my best.
Friday, February 18, 2011
I've Jumped
Guess what? I am going to be a Yoga Teacher. How exciting is that?? Every Sunday I am a human pretzel from 8:30 - 5:30pm, working my way toward first set of certification for teaching yoga. It is a challenge and every bit what I want it to be. The stars aligned and propelled me into doing this right now.
"There's only so much you can learn in one place. The more that I wait, the more time that I waste."
I'll be very honest and exposed when I say that the past few months leading up to the decision to start something new were filled with anxiety. Not for any particular reason. Rather, something inside of me switched gears and often my thoughts were randomly going back to Layla's birth and the sudden realization that there was something "wrong" with my baby. Something that made her different and off the mark. In an ocean of "normal" with it's own variety of crops all around us, there was an unknown about this new person that made everyone in the hospital press to understand what exactly went wrong and how that wrong was going to translate so that somebody could tell her parents in terms that might make an ounce of sense. Because, emotionally and physically, how could anyone put into words the sense behind a genetic anomoly and the impact on your newborn baby.
I was anxious for weeks for a point not too long ago. It was disturbing and turbulent times. The most significant hit of anxiety came at my Thursday night parent group. One of the moms was talking about the death of her baby in terms of letting her child sail away, off on her boat to the next life and how she was in the process of letting go of all of her daughter's belongings. The image was of Layla on a little boat, wrapped in white cloth, sailing off into the horizon on a tiny little boat carrying her little angelic body away. That moment, the room started to move in on me and a pair of hands grabbed me around the neck. I gently excused myself with one of the facilitators and darted to the door and drove home. I went to the baby and gave her a bath and cried. Telling her over and over that I had to leave to come give her a bath. I bundled her up in her pj's and blanky, gave her a bottle and tucked her into bed. That was it. I was so confused and felt like my head from that day on was spinning like a top while still barely attached to my body. Maya and I had to go shopping for supplies for Sabrina's birthday party and I had to get out of the store. Again, the sensation was that my head was spinning and that my senses were disconnected from my body. It couldn't be controlled. So, I held onto Maya's hand for dear life (she had no idea, I just moved fast) and got the hell out of that place. I had to get back home, I had to get back to Layla.
This was strange and I was a bit of a wreck. It was back at the parent group that I brought up these events and a trusted friend mentioned "post partum depression". I breathed a sigh of recognition for something I knew nothing about. She is a nurse and suggested from her pool of knowledge that I bring this up with my gp. The long and short of it is that I did. Then, very quickly after that, grabbed my lululemons and got back into my practice.
The rest is turning into history. I'm better and aware that anxiety is a layer of my being as a result of something birth process related. Hey - I'm allowed. Throw me a freaking bone. 18 months later of Layla's life and I still can't look back and really sink my teeth into it all.
Her life is different and it has changed mine. I've got to experience all of it. The work, the perserverance, the hospital visits, the therapy, the busyness, the beauty of having her in the family and the dynamics, the tired, the pureness of the love. You put it all together and you've got a pretty snazzy cocktail. It is a big pill to swallow.
I acknowledged that I never closed the door to the grief. I won't and it shall sway with the winds of time. It's not a door to close, it's life to push through so that you can put the grief to good use. And then, the grief changes form to something else, something pretty and frillier than grief. It happens, I know first hand because it is happening to me.
"There's only so much you can learn in one place. The more that I wait, the more time that I waste."
I'll be very honest and exposed when I say that the past few months leading up to the decision to start something new were filled with anxiety. Not for any particular reason. Rather, something inside of me switched gears and often my thoughts were randomly going back to Layla's birth and the sudden realization that there was something "wrong" with my baby. Something that made her different and off the mark. In an ocean of "normal" with it's own variety of crops all around us, there was an unknown about this new person that made everyone in the hospital press to understand what exactly went wrong and how that wrong was going to translate so that somebody could tell her parents in terms that might make an ounce of sense. Because, emotionally and physically, how could anyone put into words the sense behind a genetic anomoly and the impact on your newborn baby.
I was anxious for weeks for a point not too long ago. It was disturbing and turbulent times. The most significant hit of anxiety came at my Thursday night parent group. One of the moms was talking about the death of her baby in terms of letting her child sail away, off on her boat to the next life and how she was in the process of letting go of all of her daughter's belongings. The image was of Layla on a little boat, wrapped in white cloth, sailing off into the horizon on a tiny little boat carrying her little angelic body away. That moment, the room started to move in on me and a pair of hands grabbed me around the neck. I gently excused myself with one of the facilitators and darted to the door and drove home. I went to the baby and gave her a bath and cried. Telling her over and over that I had to leave to come give her a bath. I bundled her up in her pj's and blanky, gave her a bottle and tucked her into bed. That was it. I was so confused and felt like my head from that day on was spinning like a top while still barely attached to my body. Maya and I had to go shopping for supplies for Sabrina's birthday party and I had to get out of the store. Again, the sensation was that my head was spinning and that my senses were disconnected from my body. It couldn't be controlled. So, I held onto Maya's hand for dear life (she had no idea, I just moved fast) and got the hell out of that place. I had to get back home, I had to get back to Layla.
This was strange and I was a bit of a wreck. It was back at the parent group that I brought up these events and a trusted friend mentioned "post partum depression". I breathed a sigh of recognition for something I knew nothing about. She is a nurse and suggested from her pool of knowledge that I bring this up with my gp. The long and short of it is that I did. Then, very quickly after that, grabbed my lululemons and got back into my practice.
The rest is turning into history. I'm better and aware that anxiety is a layer of my being as a result of something birth process related. Hey - I'm allowed. Throw me a freaking bone. 18 months later of Layla's life and I still can't look back and really sink my teeth into it all.
Her life is different and it has changed mine. I've got to experience all of it. The work, the perserverance, the hospital visits, the therapy, the busyness, the beauty of having her in the family and the dynamics, the tired, the pureness of the love. You put it all together and you've got a pretty snazzy cocktail. It is a big pill to swallow.
I acknowledged that I never closed the door to the grief. I won't and it shall sway with the winds of time. It's not a door to close, it's life to push through so that you can put the grief to good use. And then, the grief changes form to something else, something pretty and frillier than grief. It happens, I know first hand because it is happening to me.
Thursday, February 17, 2011
The Power to be
Hello out there, to everyone outside of my head. Right now, this morning I don't have a care in the world. I think I'm meditating without even trying, it's the pre caffeine experience of feeling quite raw so I should seize this opportunity to share.
Last night I am giving Layla her last bottle before bed time and I'm tired. My homework time has been anywhere from 11:30 - past midnight so I'm in a hurry at 11pm to get this milk down her. She knows when I'm being hasty and instead of drinking she'll sit there with the bottle in mouth and make glug glug glug sounds as if to pretend to drink with a little but certain smile on her face.
So I stop and bring her up to face me and hold her head in my palm and try to make eye contact - it's what I'm working on with her these days, working on her visual attentiveness.
I held her head up really close to mine and massaged her head while humming to her really softly. She looked somewhere close to my eyes and I took that opportunity to take her eyes right through me.
Without any magic or hocus pocus bogus, I moved energy around her and to her, using our connection as mother and my child as the source of this energy.
I have the power to heal and I also am seeing more clearly these days than ever before that I have the power to hurt.
We can't change who we are, in fact, I honour my flaws knowing that they are my challenges.
I choose to heal and be healed. I have the capacity to lead with the example of my intentions.
My intention is to work on my anger; it is not going to be my legacy.
I'm glad I let that out.
Last night I am giving Layla her last bottle before bed time and I'm tired. My homework time has been anywhere from 11:30 - past midnight so I'm in a hurry at 11pm to get this milk down her. She knows when I'm being hasty and instead of drinking she'll sit there with the bottle in mouth and make glug glug glug sounds as if to pretend to drink with a little but certain smile on her face.
So I stop and bring her up to face me and hold her head in my palm and try to make eye contact - it's what I'm working on with her these days, working on her visual attentiveness.
I held her head up really close to mine and massaged her head while humming to her really softly. She looked somewhere close to my eyes and I took that opportunity to take her eyes right through me.
Without any magic or hocus pocus bogus, I moved energy around her and to her, using our connection as mother and my child as the source of this energy.
I have the power to heal and I also am seeing more clearly these days than ever before that I have the power to hurt.
We can't change who we are, in fact, I honour my flaws knowing that they are my challenges.
I choose to heal and be healed. I have the capacity to lead with the example of my intentions.
My intention is to work on my anger; it is not going to be my legacy.
I'm glad I let that out.
Monday, January 31, 2011
I Can Hear You
We all know that I love the sound of my own voice. Yes?
In class yesterday, we were given an interesting article on listening. I wish to share this article because I wish to be a better listener. I honour you and therefore I will listen.
I promise to take the time to really hear you because I sincerely would rather hear your issues than my own - they are getting old. And I need new inspiration!! Yours are all so neat interesting and delightfully different and sometimes equally lousy and joyous as all my stuff!! So bring on what you need to say and know that I am here .... endlessly.
Enjoy this article, it's a good one.
http://www.heartsongproject.org/_articles/Tell_Me_More.pdf (hmm, this link doesn`t want to work so here is the article below.....)
Listening is a magnetic and strange thing, a creative force. Think how the friends that really listen to us are the ones we move toward, and we want to sit in their radius as though it did us good, like ultraviolet rays.
This is the reason: When we are listened to, it creates us, makes us unfold and expand. Ideas actually begin to grow within us and come to life. You know how if a person laughs at your jokes you become funnier and funnier, and if he does not, every tiny little joke in you weakens up and dies? Well, that is the principle of it. It makes people happy and free when they are listened to. And if you are a listener, it is the secret of having a good time in society (because everybody around you becomes lively and interesting), of comforting people, of doing them good.
Who are the people, for example, to whom you go for advice? Not to the hard, practical ones who can tell you exactly what to do, but to the listeners; that is, the kindest, least censorious, least bossy people you know. It is because by pouring out your problem to them; you then know what to do about it yourself.
When we listen to people, there is an alternating current, and this recharges us so that we never get tired of each other. We are constantly being re-created. Now there are brilliant people who cannot listen much. They have no ingoing wires on their apparatus. They are entertaining, but exhausting, too. I think it is because these lecturers, these brilliant performers, by not giving us a chance to talk, do not let us express our thoughts and expand, and it is this little creative fountain inside us that begins to spring and cast up new thoughts and unexpected laughter and wisdom. That is why, when someone has listened to you, you go home rested and lighthearted.
Now, this little creative fountain is in us all. It is the spirit, or the intelligence, or the imagination-whatever you want to call it. If you are very tired, strained, have no solitude, run too many errands, talk to too many people, drink too many cocktails, this little fountain is muddied over and covered with a lot of debris. The result is you stop living from the center, the creative fountain, and you live from the periphery, from externals. That is, you go along on mere will power without imagination.
It is when people really listen to us, with quiet fascinated attention, that the little fountain begins to work again, to accelerate in the most surprising way.
I discovered all this about three years ago, and truly it made a revolutionary change in my life. Before that, when I went to a party I would think anxiously, “Now try hard. Be lively. Say bright things. Talk. Don’t let down.” And when tired, I would have to drink a lot of coffee to keep this up.
Now before going to a party, I just tell myself to listen with affection to anyone who talks to me, to be in their shoes when they talk, to try to know them without my mind pressing against theirs, or arguing, or changing the subject. No. My attitude is: “Tell me more. This person is showing me his soul. It is a little dry and meager and full of grinding talk just now, but presently he will begin to think, not just automatically talk. He will show his true self. Then he will be wonderfully alive.”
Sometimes, of course, I cannot listen as well as others. But when I have this listening power, people crowd around and their heads keep turning to me as though irresistibly pulled. It is not because people are conceited and want to show off that they are drawn to me, the listener. It is because by listening, I have started up their creative fountain. I do them good.
Now why does it do them good? I have a kind of mystical notion about this. I think it is only by expressing all that is inside that purer and purer streams come. It is so in writing. You are taught in school to put down on paper only the bright things. Wrong. Pour out the dull things on paper too-you can tear them up afterward- for only then do the bright ones come. If you hold back the dull things, you are certain to hold back what is clear and beautiful and true and lively. So it is with people who have not been listened to in the right way: with affection and a kind of jolly excitement. Their creative fountain has been blocked. Only superficial talk comes out: what is prissy or gushing or merely nervous. No one has called out of them, by wonderful listening, what is true and alive.
From the booklet by Brenda Ueland, “Tell Me More on the Fine Art of Listening”
In class yesterday, we were given an interesting article on listening. I wish to share this article because I wish to be a better listener. I honour you and therefore I will listen.
I promise to take the time to really hear you because I sincerely would rather hear your issues than my own - they are getting old. And I need new inspiration!! Yours are all so neat interesting and delightfully different and sometimes equally lousy and joyous as all my stuff!! So bring on what you need to say and know that I am here .... endlessly.
Enjoy this article, it's a good one.
http://www.heartsongproject.org/_articles/Tell_Me_More.pdf (hmm, this link doesn`t want to work so here is the article below.....)
Listening is a magnetic and strange thing, a creative force. Think how the friends that really listen to us are the ones we move toward, and we want to sit in their radius as though it did us good, like ultraviolet rays.
This is the reason: When we are listened to, it creates us, makes us unfold and expand. Ideas actually begin to grow within us and come to life. You know how if a person laughs at your jokes you become funnier and funnier, and if he does not, every tiny little joke in you weakens up and dies? Well, that is the principle of it. It makes people happy and free when they are listened to. And if you are a listener, it is the secret of having a good time in society (because everybody around you becomes lively and interesting), of comforting people, of doing them good.
Who are the people, for example, to whom you go for advice? Not to the hard, practical ones who can tell you exactly what to do, but to the listeners; that is, the kindest, least censorious, least bossy people you know. It is because by pouring out your problem to them; you then know what to do about it yourself.
When we listen to people, there is an alternating current, and this recharges us so that we never get tired of each other. We are constantly being re-created. Now there are brilliant people who cannot listen much. They have no ingoing wires on their apparatus. They are entertaining, but exhausting, too. I think it is because these lecturers, these brilliant performers, by not giving us a chance to talk, do not let us express our thoughts and expand, and it is this little creative fountain inside us that begins to spring and cast up new thoughts and unexpected laughter and wisdom. That is why, when someone has listened to you, you go home rested and lighthearted.
Now, this little creative fountain is in us all. It is the spirit, or the intelligence, or the imagination-whatever you want to call it. If you are very tired, strained, have no solitude, run too many errands, talk to too many people, drink too many cocktails, this little fountain is muddied over and covered with a lot of debris. The result is you stop living from the center, the creative fountain, and you live from the periphery, from externals. That is, you go along on mere will power without imagination.
It is when people really listen to us, with quiet fascinated attention, that the little fountain begins to work again, to accelerate in the most surprising way.
I discovered all this about three years ago, and truly it made a revolutionary change in my life. Before that, when I went to a party I would think anxiously, “Now try hard. Be lively. Say bright things. Talk. Don’t let down.” And when tired, I would have to drink a lot of coffee to keep this up.
Now before going to a party, I just tell myself to listen with affection to anyone who talks to me, to be in their shoes when they talk, to try to know them without my mind pressing against theirs, or arguing, or changing the subject. No. My attitude is: “Tell me more. This person is showing me his soul. It is a little dry and meager and full of grinding talk just now, but presently he will begin to think, not just automatically talk. He will show his true self. Then he will be wonderfully alive.”
Sometimes, of course, I cannot listen as well as others. But when I have this listening power, people crowd around and their heads keep turning to me as though irresistibly pulled. It is not because people are conceited and want to show off that they are drawn to me, the listener. It is because by listening, I have started up their creative fountain. I do them good.
Now why does it do them good? I have a kind of mystical notion about this. I think it is only by expressing all that is inside that purer and purer streams come. It is so in writing. You are taught in school to put down on paper only the bright things. Wrong. Pour out the dull things on paper too-you can tear them up afterward- for only then do the bright ones come. If you hold back the dull things, you are certain to hold back what is clear and beautiful and true and lively. So it is with people who have not been listened to in the right way: with affection and a kind of jolly excitement. Their creative fountain has been blocked. Only superficial talk comes out: what is prissy or gushing or merely nervous. No one has called out of them, by wonderful listening, what is true and alive.
From the booklet by Brenda Ueland, “Tell Me More on the Fine Art of Listening”
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