Deep Listening: Three Promises to Myself

When I am at my most stressed and anxious, all I can do is listen to the shout of my body, and lie in a quiet room, or on the sand in the sunshine under the clouds and wait for my heart to slow. I cannot function. I cannot take words in, nor can I finish sentences. Every cell vibrates, warning me at a very deep level to slow down, to rest, and to heed the signs it is giving me to slow down, my love, slow down. And listen.

I am getting better at deep listening so that I can sense these signs earlier. When I do, I can make adjustments to my life that allow my system to cope with everything that the modern world throws at it.

Me, deeply listening in Bagan, Myanmar.

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Deep listening is a being in the world that is still and quiet and attentive to all aspects of body, mind and speech. It involves listening to parts of ourselves that we are so often deaf to, helping us achieve balance. When I can use my felt-sense and tune in to feelings and intuitive knowing, I recieve the subtle messages much, much earlier, so that I am not left a quivering mess, crying in the darkness with no way of knowing whenthe intensity of the sirens of anxiety will pass.

And so, dear self, dear body, dear mind and spirit of mine, as you realise again that if you don't deeply listen, you do yourself and others a deep, deep disservice, this is a promise to you to do three things:

1) Maintain a Mindful Awareness Practice: Sitting In Quiet Stillness

How beautiful it is to wake just before dawn, and tune into the birds that begin to wake with the sun. In this quiet time, after the mind has rested in warm sleep, it is nice to listen to nature and, gently pulling the wandering thoughts that seek to label sound back to the present moment, abide peacefully in the soft light that gently brings the room into sharper focus. It is a way of feeling grounded before the day begins, a sense of solid sitting, so that the floating thoughts are anchored. It is a moment to 'be', before the demands of day come a-crashing in. And maybe, just maybe, you can hold onto that peacefulness throughout the day, gently tugging the monkey mind back to this grounded, rooted being-ness that being in the morning.

In the evening, the thoughts are faster, more unruly, but still, it is a chance to be friends with the self you may have abandoned throughout the day, forgetting to listen to what she needs. It is a way of coming back to a noticing of sensation and feeling, and where the mind keeps going to. It is okay, my love, to let the thoughts come thick and fast, if that's what they want to do. Sometimes it's a chance to simply observe and notice, and allow them to be or, after a while, to float away, whilst you re-ground and settle. In this way you regain equanimity, trying not to be pushed and pulled by life, but allow it to be what it is.

2 ) Tune in to Felt Sense

Felt senses are indistinct, often fuzzy or vague sensations that we usually don't notice until we are deeply listening and deeply receptive. We might not tell what they are 'about' but they have a presence that we need to listen to. Sometimes, they take on a more distinct, less subtle form, such as butterflies or a heaviness in the chest, but most of the time they're below the surface, ready to explode. To deeply listen to felt senses is to pre-empt the violence of emotion that can be a larger warning sign that something might overtake and overwhelm us. If we can deeply listen to these felt senses in the body, we gain a sense of equanimity that keeps us grounded and balance.

I am guilty, often, of not listening to these felt senses - they are simmering below ordinary, labelled feelings like frustration, shame or anger - but this is my promise, dear body of mine. I am going to listen more. Think of how you feel jittery, tight and on edge just before an explosion of anger, frustration and ultimate an intensely anxious episode. In this moment, there is no psychological space where I can choose my words and actions - I reduce myself to primal reaction, to flight or flight, and often freeze.

To tune into these felt senses in a curious, friendly and patient way allows for intuition, one of the most beautiful ways to sow the soil for creativity, insight and ultimately action.

3) Deep Listening Within Nature

This one I am very, very good at. In fact, it is the promise I will find least hard to keep, because when I am in nature, out on the waves or within the forest or out under the blue sky with no one else around, I am practicing the first two without even really thinking about it. I am given the quiet space I need to breath, and be. I might focus on a blade of grass, the way the light diffracts through the water forming a lattice of light, notice the underside of a hawk's wings as it soars the warm currents above the paddock, observe the changing colour of the trunks of the eucalypts, watch the crabs scurry across the beach. In this noticing, I feel a part of it - I become the light, the hawk's wing, the tree - I am no different to them and they no different to me.

And in these moments, if I am still, and quiet, and observant, and if I am alone, and say nothing, the answers come to the question I may not have even been asking. I am grounded because I am the ground, light because I am the sky, and at peace with all things.