Listening: Radvent journal Dec. 18

Posted on 18. Dec, 2010 by Princess Lasertron in inspiration, radvent

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Listen to your inner child.

What does he/she want to do today?

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★ Play basketball ★ Meet a friend for dinner ★ Make a puppet ★ Go swimming ★ Read under the covers ★ Bake a cake ★

Like many others–probably you–I come from generations of intuitive women. My mom and my grandmothers are very tuned into their inner voices and often dream about answers to questions, solutions to problems, and future events. I was taught by my mother to talk about these visions in my dreams and to trust the small, sure voice inside of me–it usually knows what to do. It’s a skill that I know I always had in me but I didn’t tune into it or use it until I was older. Maybe that is normal too.

“Don’t underestimate the value of Doing Nothing, of just going along, listening to all the things you can’t hear, and not bothering.” -Winnie the Pooh

I haven’t learned so much about simple, basal human communication in four years of college studying interpersonal comm as I did from observing and tuning in to my baby. Babies speak a different language that we can hear if we practice listening. When Alice is being fussy and inconsolable and kind of awful, I can fix it about 98% of the time if I calm myself down, turn off all external stimuli and noise, and watch her body language and listen to her cry to hear what she needs.

Learning to trust my inner voice is hard–not because I don’t trust it, but because I sometimes don’t hear it. (Hearing and listening is not the same, is it?) Whenever I ignore what my Self is trying to tell me, what she is quietly reminding me, I end up uncomfortable or regretful. Practicing listening to myself has given me more confidence and happiness because it makes me less reliant on other people. Sometimes it’s easier to ask other people what to do than to listen to myself.

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Tags: radvent, radvent 2010