Listening to Ourselves

Being a good listener begins with paying attention to yourself.

I wrote the following in response to a flash fiction exercise. A topic is given and you have 5 minutes to write. The topic was Omen:

That stupid little voice, the one telling me what I SHOULD do. "Wear your shoes today, it isn't that much of an imposition to go inside and get your shoes."
Well fuck you! I never wear my shoes! It's a beautiful spring day and I want to feel the ground beneath my feet and let the grass tickle my toes.
It was a nice walk, going nowhere in particular, breathing in the sounds and tasting the smells.
Damn that rock hurt. I reach down to brush it off. Oh shit! It's a piece of glass and it's stuck in there pretty deep...ok, I'll pull it out.
I look behind me at the trail of blood following each step. Once home I apply pressure to stop the bleeding. Oh no, this toe doesn't seem to move. The doctor said it had severed a tendon. A middle toe permanently stuck in the prestigious position of flipping someone off. A plus when I'm secretly angry!
That stupid little voice, again telling me what I SHOULD do. "Lock your bike..."
For some, it takes an immobile toe and a lost bike; which reminds me, my car is on E.

Simple memories from my teenage years, lessons learned about the voice inside. To this day, if I'm inclined to ignore that little voice, I think of my toe. I've developed the skill beyond what I wrote back then, or what could be perceived as common sense, now it's more of a silent voice, a feeling that something is not right or, conversely, that something feels very right.

Hello darkness, my old friend,
I've come to talk with you again,
Because a vision softly creeping,
Left its seeds while I was sleeping,
And the vision that was planted in my brain
Still remains
Within the sound of silence.

“Women’s Intuition”, listening,
again, pointing to Collaboration, baby and How We Can Improve Collaboration it is pointed out that women are inherently better at collaboration than men.

The skill of listening is essential to collaboration. The ants, in the poem below, are trying to be heard. The man,(power), at the top is only concerned with building his empire. His own inner voice is dead, he is disconnected from the foundation and the voices of the world, be it the world of business or the earth itself.

The art of listening (first, to ourselves) has to be (re)developed as a first step toward improving collaboration. The instincts are there, pay attention, drown out the noise, and revisit the sounds of silence. posted by Cyndy | link | | |
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