GETTING AT WHAT MATTERS

“If you want to be truly understaood, you need to say everything three times, in three different ways. Once for each ear…and once for the heart.”
~ Paula Underwood

For years I felt so unheard trhat when asked a question after speaking my heart, I’d take it as rejection or criticism. Often, though, it was just someone trying to understand. What was called for was for me to circle the unsayable and try again.

I’ve learned that true dialogue requires both speaker and listener to try several times to get at what matters. For sometimes, the truth is uttered just as I have to cough.Or your heart opens and closes while I am struggling to land.

So much depends on timing, and so, I’ve learned not to repeat myself, but to play what matters like a timeless melody, again and again, if the one before me is honest and sincere.

~ This is a talking meditation. Sit with a loved one and take turns cirlcing the unsayable:

~ Fist, tell you loved on how you feel about them.

~ Then, take some time in silence and say how you feel again.

~ After some more time in silence, take each other’s hands and say how you feel one last time.

The Book of Awakening

~ Mark Nepo