Our Heart's Heart

If our heart had a heart, with a mouth and a mind, what would it say? How could we listen to it when we don't listen to our heart often to begin with?

I've started to listen with a particular level of mindfulness that asks me to sit, for five or ten minutes, in silence, looking for answers I didn't know I had questions to. And as I begin to sit, early in the morning or late at night, alone in my room and without a sound present, I start to generate a new way of listening closely--inwardly, to myself. And what I have discovered is that although my mind races with thoughts of the future, my present stillness resolves the conflicts of yesterday. I cannot take back what I have not listened to my heart for in the past, but I can give thanks in everything that has transpired.

My wings grow stronger in this incredible disguise.

It is in this new way of listening, that I have become more easily able to shed old skin. I've spent several weekends reading through different psychotherapeutic ways of listening to another person, but nowhere in the discussion do I see how to listen to ourselves. At church this morning, I listened to the fears of a couple who have two children applying for Ph.D programs in Neuroscience. I thought of what my books were trying to teach me--how can I extract the essence of the conversation without adding my own opinion? I began to list the ways in which I could effectively listen.

This is what they said:

Their daughter is a high-functioning genius that is interesting in imaging.
Their son is a smart fellow who took on volunteer research opportunities to increase his chances of getting into a Ph.D program
Their marriage is complicated-the husband has adult ADHD and the mother can't stand that he doesn't cap the milk in the mornings.
The wife knows the functionality of her marriage is on a spectrum, rarely unified and often dichotomous.
They love each other, despite the fact that one person doesn't pick up their towel in the bathroom
They have two children who are "trying to figure out how badly their parent's screwed them up."

This is what I heard:

The politics of the graduate school process are wearing the family down.
The daughter fears failure, and calculates all of her success upon acceptance.
The son is hopeful of his future and confident in his abilities
The husband loves his wife and wants to pick up his towel in the mornings
The wife has contemplated separating her husband because she doesn't feel respected
The parents want to understand each other more than anything
The children blame their parents for their issues growing up, but this is really perhaps the parent's feeling guilty about past issues, and are confident in sharing them with me.
The parents are confident in sharing with me...someone they only know as interested in clinical psychology.

I said nothing, except, "What else?"

I had just broken a major pragmatic norm. The wife looked at me surprised. She pulled her pink scarf around her shoulder and brushed her smooth gray hair behind her ear. She paused for a moment, looked silently at me, took a breath and continued.

I just listened, extracting the essence of her words and learning how to hold back from my own thoughts and opinions. I wanted to exercise the notion that when we give our opinions, it is just a nicer way of judging the person in front of us. What our opinions really mean, is that we are taking the conversation personally. Instead, I thought about what her words were trying to convey emotionally. How was her husband responding non-verbally?

And even at my swiftest listening speed, I went inward. What could listening at this level truly teach me? How can I become a better listener for everyone in my life? And as I sat in the coffee room, I began to see the unfolding of this miraculous gift--the gift of true understanding, respect, and selflessness. Yes, this is listening with our hearts in a way that I can understand.

With great compassion.

And as I begin to listen to the people around me, I will think of what their heart wants to say, and the words they choose to express it. I will become no longer threatened, angered, or changed by the words we speak--I will instead continue to move to the rhythms of our inward voice. To listen to theirs, and to hear my own. To extract the essence of our spiritual discoveries, and to honour the tremendous emotional intelligence we all have inside us.

To hear clearly. To give up the need to be right. To learn about the voice that hides deep within us, begging to sing freely.

Thanks Be to the Gift of Fear

It seems that fear slips in today, and leaves when our dreams of tomorrow are fulfilled. But we can't see those days ahead because all we see now is the lack of X, Y and Z. Someday, we say. One day, I know we will 1, 2,3. And oh how splendid it will be.

But today was not one of those days. I woke too late for a day that ended too early. On our fourth possible snow storm of this month, I wanted nothing more than to beat the freezing rain and grab a coffee at a nearby Tufts University coffee shop. Alone, and with nothing but the frozen icicles shaped like daggers, dripped dry on the three story houses that surround my community. The nearest coffee shop was about a half mile down the road.

And on this walk, I saw Pastor Karl, with little success, scrap the ice chunks at the steps of our plain Church. I quickly ran across the street, knowing that in a movie I would offer to help him shovel, and bring him back a cup of coffee from the cafe down the road. But I didn't, and I was okay with deciding to be un-Godly for this moment...this walk was mine today, and I will see him tomorrow, as we gather for worship and prayer. Sacred-selfishness, for now.

I began to see my life ahead of me, though unable to lift my head from the floor, in fear of walking on slippery ice. I imagined good friends and fellow Psychologists, laughing around a dinner table, talking about our hopes, our failures and dreams. I saw my mother and her husband, sitting next to each other, laughing. I saw my sister and her wife holding another child in their hands. My sister wore a beautiful jeweled black rose on her collar, radiant with rosy lips and a beaming smile. And I saw myself, sitting next to my husband, who was holding a child of our own, though I couldn't tell yet if this was a child of our own, or an adopted one. Either way, they were there and I already felt their names resonate in my heart. Yes, yes yes a thousand times yes, this is how my life will be.

And then we think, after resurfacing from a dream so deep, that although it will be that way, it is somehow, not now. And now is the time for us to see the beautiful creation of those comfortable tomorrows. It is in this discomfort that we are truly living...that we are already in the thick of it.

Outside my stoop I saw a bushel of little birds, chirping together in harmony. The freezing rain began to fall, and they collectively looked for shelter. I ran inside to look for bread worthy of sharing with them. I tossed a few large pieces of bread into the branches of a tree sunk six feet deep into the snow. At first the birds scampered out of the way, and quickly returned to their spots on the branches. And as the bread caught onto the branches, the birds hopped an inch closer, slowly, and one by one. I worried that if they didn't hurry the bread would become soaked, but they took their time anyway. And it was in this moment that my insides grew into a state of mild fear for their possible hunger. The bread was right infront of them, waiting to be consumed.

And still, they chirped while the bread sat.

In the distance from the bread to the birds, and the stoop from the tree to me, everything was already beautiful, as it was.

As it should be, for now.