Can You Listen With Your Whole Body?

Once while walking through the grocery store as a three year old with my mother, I chatted and chirped and asked and sang. I felt I did not have all of my dear mom’s attention. She gentled me while choosing the foods that would nourish our family but I was not content.

“You’re not listening to me mama!” I said. “I am Hilary, I am. I’m listening to you with my whole body” I stopped in my tracks, amazed, perplexed. “Even your vagina?!” I shouted.

Where curiosity, the body and deep listening converge, here lies the stuff of wise perceptions and grand adventure to this day.

From aisle 5 to your yoga mat, how, with what sensory apparatus and with what qualities of attention do you listen?

This week I am in collaboration with a heart sister @woodlandpantry, of 18 years, as she reminded me today. The skill I am most called to hone in order to to be of service to her, is listening. 

Listening without waiting for my turn to speak. Listening without anticipation. Listening not to debate but to most deeply understand. Listening while my belly fully expands and my chest rises. Listening as my exhale floats across the room, where her body will pick up chemical signals about the strength of our connection.

A question arises as she describes her work. I set it into a shallow pocket of my brain, or jot it down in order to return my focus as gracefully as I am able, to her voice, her expression. 

I remember Tanya telling me years ago that when she spoke, she sometimes visualized the facial expression her listener would wear, had she communicated just as she desired to. Her mind tracked backwards from this successful conclusion to find the necessary words.

And so I set my gaze gently on this woman, allow my face to be in conversation with her story, and though I’m hard of hearing, use my best listening ears to conjure a meeting of intuitive minds.

I am listening.