More easily written than achieved. However, there are many ways we can expand our listening to ourselves. If we practice listening to ourselves, we may find it easier to listen to others respectfully.  When you have a dynamic relationship with your own thoughts, beliefs, desires, opinions, you are more apt to listen to others’. I have learned to listen to myself primarily through writing, through working with my dreams, through meditation, and through yoga.

When I write, I move thoughts out of the gerbil wheel of my perseverating mind. I bring them to fuller consciousness as I form them into phrases or sentences; I come to new understandings about my way of being in the world as I become interested in exploring past experiences and relationships. I see the thoughts on the page and can more easily develop those thoughts and/or question whether what I have written makes sense.

This commitment to developing my own thinking and exploring the meaning of my life experiences is part of my decision to write this blog. As I write about one experience or idea, I clear my mind and leave open space for more creative thinking. I can save what I have written and return to it another time to develop the thought or story.

I often tell people if you are not falling asleep easily at night, before you get in bed (preferably not in your bedroom) write in a notebook all the things that come to mind after a busy day. When you are finished, close the notebook firmly and say, “I have written down what is concerning me. I will return to these thoughts in the morning. Now I am going to go to sleep.” You are telling your unconscious that you do not have to be awakened  or stay awake worrying over something. You have made your thoughts and experiences conscious and you have promised to deal with it in the future. A caveat: you must actually keep your promise to write more the next day or the deal is off. The unconscious knows when we cheat ourselves.

So that your writing has a chance to become a discipline, I recommend a commitment to using one of Julie Cameron’s books which involves writing three pages daily. I discovered that you cannot write about the same thing over and over for three pages without becoming frustrated and bored with yourself. Three pages forces you through your own impasse into new thinking, insights and ideas. In conjunction with psychotherapy, you can break through all sorts of barriers to living your life more fully with more energy and integrity.

Beginning a blog, as I have, is another way of keeping track of your own listening skills. As I have said, I know I have many ideas and experiences that have taught me an immense amount about myself and pushed me “to know what I know” at a more life giving level. For instance, I was sure today’s blog would be about my meditative practice of sitting through high tide with Grandmother Ocean. That piece simply would not write. I felt stymied and disappointed in myself–why couldn’t I make it work when this discipline is so essential to me? Then I mentioned my impasse to my husband, who said, “Why don’t you write about the dream you worked on yesterday and shared with me this morning?” I responded, “All right, why not? I’ll try that. I’m not getting anywhere with this topic.”

And here I am. I have set forward four topics I want to blog about. Tomorrow I will write about that dream. I also suspect I will be writing more about writing in future blogs–and even explain more about the other tabs on my website: Imagining the Sacred, DARING Faith and Living (Well) into Our Dying.