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Sacred Conversation with Your Heart – #5

Apr 28, 2017 | My sort-of Sermons, Spirituality, Women's Voice & Power, Women's Wisdom, Writing

We’re moving toward the end of this 6-part series. I am hopeful it has done your heart good – especially given that it’s all about your good and to-be-trusted heart! If you’ve not read the earlier entries, they all build upon each other. I hope you’ll take the time to catch up. 

  1. Introductions 
  2. Tentative Listening 
  3. Hearing Deeper Truths 
  4. Speaking Deeper Truths 

Today, drum roll please… 

PART FIVE – LOVING THE DIALOGUE 

Once we have become familiar with the language of our heart, the ways in which it speaks to us, the ways in which we learn to listen, AND the ways in which we learn to speak, dialogue is a daily gift. 

Think about the experience of having friends with whom you can pick up conversation and relationship exactly where you left off. No matter the miles or even years between; it’s as though no time or distance has passed. There is an intimacy, a knowing, a familiarity and trust – like synchronized heartbeats. 

The same can be / is true about conversation with your heart: ongoing, meaningful, spontaneous, eortless, and continuous. 

I know a woman who has created a daily ritual of letting her heart speak to her. She carves out time each morning to sit and listen – expecting to hear. She writes down all that her heart chooses to say, trusting its wisdom, its deeper truth, its insight, its value. In so doing, she hears what her heart wants her to speak and do. And then she responds! She articulates (to her heart) all of her fears, her hopes, her desires. Back and forth this dialogue goes. She has learned to trust this process, to be sure; more to love it! Her heart readily responds. 

You can do the same, of course – creating ways to allow and encourage these conversations with your heart, learning to love the dialogue between you – and you! 

And when natural lulls occur, when you struggle to hear – or feel heard, just like in any relationship, you can trust the bonds already formed. You return. You stay. You wait. You hope. And throughout, more certain and sure than ever before, your heart keeps beating, speaking, calling. 

Loving the dialogue with your heart keeps you centered, grounded, and in touch with your most honest, brave, and true self. That dialogue and that relationship fuels and invites a passionate, full-of-heart life! 

May it be so! 

REFLECT 

  • Try the exercise above. Carve out time to listen to your heart – with the full expectation that it will respond. And, as in any good dialogue, respond back. 
  • Consider using two different color pens (or fonts, if typing). Let your heart speak – freely, candidly, spontaneously. Change colors and write out your response. (Remember: no holding back.) Switch colors again, and let your heart speak to what it hears, in response to your response. This is dialogue at its best. And the more of it you do (just like in any relationship) the stronger your bond, your intimacy, your (self) love. 
  • I do this often in my own journaling practice – especially when I’m struggling with myself, something, or someone. I write out how I’m feeling – no matter how cranky or negative or despairing. And then I listen/imagine my heart’s voice in response. I write out exactly what it has to say to me, no matter how hard it sometimes is to hear, allow, even believe at times. It always speaks (like any good friend would). And seeing its “voice” on the page in front of me, gives me opportunity to respond more deeply, more honestly, and almost always with far more tenderness, softness, and vulnerability. Oh, what a difference this has made for me over the years…hearing that wiser, truer, sage-of-a-voice within; learning to love the dialogue with my heart…my very self. May it be so for you, as well.

Sacred Conversation with Your Heart – #4

Apr 27, 2017 | My sort-of Sermons, Spirituality, Women's Wisdom, Writing

PART FOUR – SPEAKING DEEPER TRUTHS  

Conversation, of course, is more than just listening. At its best, it is filled with call-and response, back-and-forth, give-and-take. The same is true when we engage in conversation with our heart. 

Not one-sided, our heart wants more than just our listening ear, it waits (and waits and waits) to hear our voice. 

When I began to listen tentatively and then far deeper, I somehow knew everything was going to change. My heart knew it too – and far before my conscious mind. All my conscious mind could know, it seemed, was fear! To move from the seeming-safety of an endless internal dialogue into a vocalized external reality explains why I stayed quiet for a very long time. 

But not forever.

It was the ongoing (sacred) conversation with my heart that gave me the courage to finally speak – out loud. 

Speaking deeper truths is not easy; but it matters – more than anything else. 

You can trust the conversation you’ve had with your heart – that quiet, safe, and sacred space. Now, stepping beyond your inner world and into your external one, you can also trust that nothing you have heard, nothing you have discovered, nothing you have finally acknowledged and allowed will lead you astray. 

What would happen if one woman told the truth about her life? The world would split open. ~ Muriel Rukeyser 

Choosing to speak deeper truths, to live out-loud, to articulate your desires, hopes, honest emotions, and beliefs is a powerful, world-splitting way to live. 

World-splitting yes, but not world-destroying. Not even heart-stopping (though at times, it may feel otherwise). Your wise and brave heart will keep beating, speaking, guiding, loving. That’s what hearts do. Yours is no exception. So speak. And live. Out-loud. 

REFLECT: 

  • Are you aware of the places in which you remain silent? With whom? 
  • “All her life she has been in love with the hope of telling utter truth.” These words were spoken about the poet, Adrienne Rich. They also speak to what your heart hopes on your behalf. Do you know this to be true about yourself? What if it was? If you spoke that utter truth, what would you say? 
  • What worlds might split open if you began to live (and speak) your heart-conversation out loud? 

Mmmmmm. May it be so.

*****

This is Part 4 in a 5-Part series. If you’ve missed any, you can find #1 here, #2 here, and #3 here. 

Sacred Conversation with Your Heart – #3

Apr 26, 2017 | My sort-of Sermons, Spirituality, Women's Wisdom, Writing

PART THREE – HEARING DEEPER TRUTHS 

My heart does not steer me wrong. It may speak to me of things I’m not yet ready to hear, acknowledge, or accept; but its wisdom remains solid, faithful, and true. (Much like the heartbeat itself…) 

It took me a long time to hear this voice within, to acknowledge it as my heart, to trust it—and even longer to follow it. I knew that if/when I did, change would come: relationships would shift, plans would alter, pre-determined paths would be abandoned.

This may not be your heart’s deeper truth, it’s unique conversation with you; but it was mine. When I learned and was willing to listen to it, my heart told me of my deeper truths; realities I ached for – and the ones for which I’d been too afraid to hope.

Deeper truths are unsettling and stunningly beautiful. They are the stuff of legend, of passion, of dreams fullled, of courage, of faith. But they rarely come without cost, without bloodshed, without tears. Ours. Others’. 

We already know this intuitively and, of course, it causes us to shrink back. 

Our gracious heart knows-knows-knows this, as well – that we are hesitant, fearful, and resistant to hear-and-trust-and-follow what we know lies within. And still, that same gracious heart keeps beating. It calls to us in rhythmic, endless ways. A beckoning, a nudge, a gentle reminder, an emotion that catches us off guard, a piece of music, a memory—all vulnerable (and deep-truth) expressions of the heart’s longing to be heard. 

If you will but trust it, your heart will oer up deep, deep truth that can’t not be heard and honored; that can change everything.  

Deeper truths are there, waiting. Oh, the courage it takes to believe them… 

REFLECT: 

But you can’t get to any of these truths by sitting in a field smiling beautifically, avoiding your anger and damage and grief. Your anger and damage and grief are the way to the truth. We don’t have much truth to express unless we have gone into those rooms and closets and woods and abysses that we were told not to go in to. When we have gone in and looked around for a long while, just breathing and finally taking it in – then we will be able to speak in our own voice and to stay in the present moment. And that moment is home. ~ Anne Lamott 

  • “Deeper truths are unsettling and stunningly beautiful.” Can you name the “rooms, closets, woods, and abysses” to which your heart invites you; the deeper, darker places that call to you? And will you stay? When you do, even for moments, can you recognize and acknowledge even the smallest part of you that feels like you’ve finally come home? 
  • As you listen to what emerges in this deepest-truth conversation with your heart, this know-that-you-know-that-you-know voice within, can you feel and name the emotions that lie just under the surface and the ones that emerge? They all deserve and desire to be heard – as do you.
  • If you truly believed that your heart would not steer you wrong, what would you do? What would you say? And what might that cost? (You already know, don’t you? That is your deeper truth. Beat-beat. Beat-beat. Beat-beat.) 

*****

If you missed the first two posts you can find them here and here.

Sacred Conversation with Your Heart – #2

Apr 25, 2017 | My sort-of Sermons, Spirituality, Women's Wisdom, Writing

Today features Part 2 in a 6-part series that’s all about Sacred Conversation – not with me, but with your heart. You can read Part 1 here. Each post offers a new aspect of the topic, the practice, and its signicance. and concludes with reflection questions and prompts to invite you into the most important (and ongoing) conversation you’ll ever have. Truly. 

*****

PART TWO – TENTATIVE LISTENING 

When I first began to consider it, the idea of listening to my heart scared me to death. Because deep inside, I already knew what I would hear. If I listened for long, I’d actually have to do something about the things my heart was trying to tell me. It was far easier to stop listening—or do so only half heartedly. 

Most of us have been discouraged from listening to our hearts. We’ve been told they can’t be trusted; that objective, reason-based mental processes are far more reliable. Understandably then, when our heart invites us, again and again, to an inner, subjective, emotion-based conversation, we convince ourselves that our head knows better. 

But your heart waits patiently because it knows that it knows better. And so, tentative listening is a very good place to start.

When you begin, you can expect to be confronted by thoughts and emotions that feel contrary to your existing circumstances, relationships, or responsibilities; things you may expend a lot of effort to not think about or feel. Not surprisingly, you are then far less-than inclined to quickly embrace and inculcate everything you hear. You hold back. You test the waters. You wait. You listen some more. Just like conversation with another person, yes? You make sure you can trust the source before you slowly, cautiously turn toward the whispering within; that still, small voice. 

Spoiler alert: you can trust the source; you can trust your heart. 

Yes, tentative listening is a very good place to start. Then, when you’re ready, ask yourself, “What if I listened fully instead of tentatively?” 

What if, indeed… 

REFLECT: 

  • What are the challenges you face in being able to hear your heart? Focus? Technique? Noise? Or is it the fear/awareness of what you might actually hear? 
  • Try tentative listening. Give kind, gentle attention to what comes up that feels opposed to your objective, reason-based mental processes. Can you kindly, gently allow the subjective, emotion-based thoughts to come to mind…to heart? 
  • Even if you listen half-heartedly, only a little, and maybe with great hesitation, what whispers do you hear? Every glimmer, fleeting thought, blurry image, and pang of emotion matters. Your heart is speaking. Can you hear it beating? What does it tell you? Keep listening. And write. Anything, everything…gently, gently. 

Pssssst. You can trust what you hear.

Sacred Conversation with Your Heart – #1

Apr 24, 2017 | My sort-of Sermons, Spirituality, Women's Wisdom, Writing

Today starts a 6-part series that’s all about Sacred Conversation – not with me, but with your heart. Each post will offer another aspect of the topic, the practice, and its significance – along with reflection questions and prompts to invite you into the most important (and ongoing) conversation you’ll ever have. 

*****

We are surrounded by conversation all day, every day – at the very least, words and talk and verbal noise. At home and work, in the car and on the bus, in stores and on streets, on the web – on TV – in music – on blogs – in books, in neighborhoods and across the globe. Sometimes we engage. Sometimes we listen. Other times it’s just din. 

And then there are the conversations that take place endlessly, continuously within. In my experience they can be far harder to engage and sometimes seemingly impossible to hear. And – they long for both: your hearing, your engagement, your response. These are conversations with your heart. 

Did you know? Your heart speaks. It listens. It asks. It tells. It knows. It feels. It advises. It desires. It hurts. It hopes. It loves. 

Your heart invites you to ongoing, articulate, and beautiful sacred conversations with your deepest, truest self. 

And these are conversations worth having. 

So…let’s begin at the beginning. 

*****

PART ONE – INTRODUCTIONS 

Every conversation between two people begins with some kind of introduction, a greeting, a hello. For it to move past this point and take on meaning and value, we must want to hear more, want to know more; we  have to determine how the  other wants to be known, how much they are willing to share, how they speak, even  what they don’t say. If either party is reluctant to listen, to hear, to understand, to learn, the conversation ends before it’s even begun. 

Conversation with your heart is no different. 

Do you want to hear what your heart has to say? Do you want to know it well? Do you want to learn the unique ways in which it expresses itself? 

I’m speaking only for myself when I say that sometimes my answer is “no.” 

Sometimes it can be far easier to turn up the volume on other aspects of life than to listen to the heart’s quiet whisper, deep desires, and patient but persistent beating as it waits (and waits and waits) to be heard, acknowledged, trusted, and followed. 

Because here’s the thing: When you really listen and engage in conversation with your heart you find yourself face-to-face with powerful truth: words, sentences, and emotions that graciously ask for response and ongoing dialogue; powerful truth that compels honesty, risk, and change, that will not leave you unchanged. 

Knowing this, tell me true: Do you want to hear what your heart has to say – directly to you? I hope the answer is “yes.” 

REFLECT:

  • Imagine listening to your heart’s introduction of itself when you say, “hello.” How does it respond? Is it outgoing? Shy? Reticent? Enthusiastic? What can you learn of it already… even in these first few words? 
  • If, even for a moment, you could silence all the voices, pressures, demands, disappointments, and expectations that swirl within, what do you imagine you might hear – even in this introductory stage? Single words? Fragments of sentences? Any images that come to mind? 
  • Listen. What does your heart want you to know, to hear, to consider? Write any and everything that comes… 

My Left-Hand Side

Mar 27, 2017 | My sort-of Sermons, Women's Voice & Power, Women's Wisdom

I did a quick mapping of my body the other day. Here’s what I discovered – from top to
bottom:

  • Many mornings, I wake up with my left eye puffy. Not enough water, too much wine, too many tears, and for some reason, always when sleeping in hotels.
  • My left ear is higher than my right. This causes me to constantly adjust my glasses so that they are straight over the bridge of my nose.
  • I had the left side of my nose pierced.
  • My left shoulder must be slightly higher than my right. Just like my glasses, I am constantly adjusting a sleeve or neckline to symmetry.
  • I wear 10 bracelets on my left arm – always, every day. It would never occur to me to put them on the other arm.
  • Two fingers on my left hand bear the memory of accidental knife cuts in the kitchen.
  • My left thigh still shows the long, white line where I sliced my leg open in the bathtub – shaving my legs against my mother’s wishes.
  • My left knee is scarred from falling from my bike and on to gravel-filled roads – multiple times.
  • My left knee hit the gym floor with a thud every time I did jump splits – thousands of
    times during four years of high school drill team. And if I pulled a hamstring in a kick-line, it was the left one – not quite as limber.
  • I have ice on my left knee right now, even as I type – strained from a new exercise
    regimen.
  • My left calf got shut in a truck door nearly 40 years ago, its spidery veins extending,
    remaining, reminding.
  • My left ankle is dented, mangled, misshapen from falling down the church stairs some 15 years ago. I was on my way to pick up the girls from Sunday School. No subtle slip, I tumbled – head over heels – a mess. Emergency room. Lots of ice. Even crutches for a day or two. “Nothing broken. Nothing to be done,” I was told. Still, it swells by the end of every day and leaves me resistant to wearing a dress and heels.
  • I have a mole on the top of my left foot that I fervently tried to hide when younger.
  • And this just noticed: when I look at my profile in the mirror, it’s my left side that’s turned toward the glass.

Reiki practitioners, chakra experts, those who hold an integrative view of the body, say that the left side represents the feminine and the right side the masculine. I am none of these, but still, I can venture this guess: my feminine side keeps getting hurt. It is unprotected marred, marked by suffering and pain – past, even present.

But my right side, the masculine side? Sure, an occasional bump or scrape; that ache in my shoulder when I’ve spent too much time at the computer. Oh, and what must have been my subconscious attempt at equanimity: the tattoo on my right wrist.

But this is not about equanimity, nor even my left and right sides. This is about my heart, my emotions, my intuition, my very self. This is about how everything would be different if the feminine within (and without) was trusted – not harmed, expressed – not wounded, sacred – not scarred.

Still… Though I am aware of such, my mind is awhirl with a plethora of associations, insights, and thoughts. Think of the ramifications and implications of this awareness, of the recognition of just how slighted the feminine within me has been! Think of what this has looked like in relationships, professionally, creatively, emotionally – or lack thereof! Think, indeed.

That’s the problem, the issue, the point!

All my thinking-thinking-thinking has got to stop. Which, of course, is completely impossible. At the least, I long for it to become subservient then – to my feelings, to my heart.

I long for the masculine to bow to the feminine – in deference, in diligence, in determined respect and honor.

But oh, how I struggle with this! Even as I write (and think and think and think), I perpetuate the issue in and of itself. My masculine, rational, effcient, and ever-thinking-thinking-thinking brain is hard at work to make sense, make meaning, and along the way, hijack my heart. The masculine within me (and without) wants me to keep writing – pithy, interesting, engaging sentences; concepts and ideas that elucidate this further. Say more! Reason it out! Ruminate. Ponder. Pontificate. Think harder. Think more. Think, period!

But that is NOT the left, NOT the feminine, NOT my heart. Not really.

It’s a battle. No wonder my left side loses, given how exercised and strong my right!

Limber, conditioned, and used to getting its way, it knows all the tricks – and employs as many of them as absolutely possible. I stop short. I find a distraction or fifty. I come up with a million-and-one reasons why I need to be cleaning the pantry or heading to Costco or answering an email or checking Facebook or seeing how many documents I could possibly delete off my hard-drive by organizing them in reverse-chronological order (you do that, right?) or considering redecorating options once Abby has left for college or looking at my bank account balance and wondering when I’ll finally get my shit together or wondering if today will be the day in which I won’t eat chips in front of the television set or pour a second glass of wine or maybe watch television at all as I look at the clock on my computer and wonder about how much longer I need to stay here before I can legitimately get out the chips and the wine and turn on the TV. Netflix is so much easier that this!

And my brain is so happy, so occupied, so busy, so productive, so strong! I can see it in my minds eye: the masculine, right hand side of me smiles, flexes a bicep, winks at me, then moves out smartly while my feminine, left hand side leans, lists, and limps.

How do I articulate through left-brain language in a left-brain world the deeper wisdom of the left-hand side, the feminine?

What am I to do? Wait! No more “doing.” What am I to feel, to allow, to invite? How do I bypass this brain of mine – even if only for a while – and listen to that know-that-I-know-that-I-know voice within?

I don’t have any answers. And that is a very good start. Answers – at least the Excel spreadsheet, completely balanced, pro and con type – are NOT what I am looking for here.

Questions – open-ended, deeply provocative, impossible to answer – are what I need more of, along with the willingness and patience and grace to stay with them, to swim in their swirly depths, to take a deep breath and be willing to go under without guarantee of when or if I’ll resurface, to breathe underwater…

One question in particular keeps drawing me ever-deeper into its tidal pull. I allow myself to ask it again and again:

How do I feel? How do I feel? How do I feel?
I feel wobbly. I list toward silence. I don’t know how to make sense of this, what to say, what to write, how to be.

How do I feel? How do I feel? How do I feel?
Frustrated and afraid and angry and small and backed into a corner and threatened and weak and silly and over-reactive and pathetic and stupid and whiny.

How do I feel? How do I feel? How do I feel?
Sad. Full of grief. So many feelings unexpressed for my mind’s efficient compartmentalizing, justification, and desire for closure.

How do I feel? How do I feel? How do I feel?
Tender. Aware. (I’m breathing a bit more slowly.)

How do I feel? How do I feel? How do I feel?
Soft. Pliable. Limber. Strong, even.

How do I feel? How do I feel? How do I feel?
Now that I’m here? Grateful. Like myself. Whole and home.

I had to ask myself that series of questions six times before feeling like I’d dropped into its fullness, its truth, my fullest, truest self.

And, because my brain is chomping at the bit to make sense of all this, this:

The feminine is more likely recognized and revealed when I tell my truth, when I acknowledge my frustration, and yes, always, forevermore, when I grieve. It shows up underneath the anger and certainly underneath the self-contempt – where the sadness and tenderness and awareness reside, where my breathing slows and my strength returns and gratitude floats.

And it takes so much work to get there. Not striving, masculine work, but trusting, slow, ever-releasing, feminine work. Maybe not “work,” but “labor.” Labor that strengthens my knowing, my intuition, my heart. Labor that allows even my memory-body to heal. Labor that releases aches and pains and spider veins. Labor that  welcomes me home. Labor that births me anew and is older than time. Worth every push and cry and swollen ankle.

As I type, the ice pack on my left knee has melted and warmed. My neck is tight. I have the beginning of a headache. It’s just slightly more intense on my right-hand side.

That’s good, I think. Wait. No. That’s good, I feel.