Dear Readers.....I have missed you!

I have been busier than ever but I think about sitting down to write each and every day and then somehow that winds up at the bottom of the list each evening. I could write a lot about what I have been up to lately but I will save that for another time and the new blog......more on that later! What feels important today is to share a conversation I had with Sharlyn this morning.

The topic was listening.

Reverential listening.

Sharlyn has a friend in a deep crisis.....a serious turning point......a major life choice. The kind of choice that no person would ever want to be faced with. I can't share the details but what I can say is that this situation led her to share deeply with Sharlyn last night about her grief. Her grief is deep and on some level will be life long. I imagine that some peace will come in stops and starts but still the pain will linger deep in her heart until her very last breath. So the important lesson that I feel compelled to share is that Sharlyn and I have been talking a lot lately about reverential listening. What it is, how to be better at it, the importance of it.....so many times when others are talking we are formulating what we are going to say next and although we might be hearing we aren't truly listening. Do you know what I am talking about? Of course you do. I want people to always feel that I am deeply listening to them from a place that is not trying to respond instantly with the next clever thing to say but rather from a place that is calm, centered and sacred.

Sharlyn found that last night the only way she could really respond to her friend's grief was through this kind of listening. There was no rushing to fix it. Because she can't. There was no crafty combination of words to cheer her up or ease the pain or offer a glimmer of hope. There was just two ears allowing the words to gently float in and sit and rest.

This is not easy when we love someone and we want to ease their pain. It is hard to sit in the fire with a friend and ignore the desire to throw a bucket of water on it. It is a spiritual practice to just be with anger. Be with pain. Be with heartache. Be with grief. To sit still and let the chaos swirl around us and not rush in with word, thought or action to fix it when there truly is no fix.

Join me in this if you will........deeply listening to one another. With reverent attention. With hearts wide open. With love.
Till next time.....
Kimberly