The Art of Deep Listening

When was the last time you decided something without thinking too much about it. It was something that just “felt” right and you just SAID YES or it just DIDN’T feel right for no logical reason so you just SAID NO and felt no guilt or pressure about it. What if every decision you ever had to make in your life felt like that? What would that mean to you?

There is a practice that I have been exploring for the last few years pretty intently. It is a practice that will lead to this way of being more often in your life. And yes, it has everything to do with your intuition.

It’s called Deep Listening.

What exactly is Deep Listening?

The dissectionists in ancient times (literally people who dissected animals and cadavers for science and enlightenment) believed that the auditory nerve nerve was composed of THREE pathways:

• One level of hearing was for the mundane things in life, the everyday conversations all around us.
• A second level of hearing was, they surmised, designed to interpret and absorb all art and all higher learning.
• the third level existed so that the soul might hear the guidance it needed.

Deep Listening then, is Soul Listening. 

When we are caught up in the wash, rinse, repeat of our lives… you know, the to-do lists, the obligations, the moving our own desires, needs, well being to the back as we care for others, we may have lost, temporarily, the amazing art of Deep Listening.

Some of the signs that we may be in this place are:

• short fuse – lack of patience for things outside of our control
• feeling of listlessness or lack of purpose
• feeling like a machine or robot with no access to any real emotions
• feeling not bad but not good either
• feeling a restlessness for “something” but you cannot put your finger on it
• no energy to create anything – writing, art, cooking, dancing, etc

There are more “symptoms” to when we are caught in the wash, rinse, repeat cycle, but you will know what this feels like for you.

And Deep Listening can be a doorway to reigniting your Soul Life back to you.

Deep Listening can also aid you in, as I said earlier, making decisions. If we are tapped into this place, no decision is too big for us because we will just know what to do.

So how do we begin?

We begin by starting to pay attention to the, as an old german lady I knew called it “Inner Bruder Lisch.” Her “Inner Brother”. This is her name for her inner wise voice that guides her and alerts her to when she has lost her way. I like to call this voice my Inner Wild Woman or Inner Wise Woman. The name is not important. Recognizing the voice is.

You may think that your inner voice is only chiming up during big life altering times, but actually it speaks to us all the time. And you will notice it because it sometimes will tell you to turn left at the lights suddenly, instead of going straight. Even though you go straight every single time. Start to listen to these instructions every day. You might hear it tell you to call a friend, or turn on the radio, or wear a certain outfit. You simply start doing what it is guiding you to do.

But Lisa, you say, how do I know it is my inner voice for realz?

Ahhh.. that is the thing with Deep Listening. You will know because you will JUST KNOW. And this takes practice. Just follow this inner guidance, hunch, feeling for this week and see where it takes you.

The next step is to spend time in solitude and quiet, if you can. And even better, to do something creative at the same time. Paint, write, sing, dance, make collages. This is NOT while you watch TV, though. You can put on music, but this is where you let your wildish nature lead you to your creative self. Another door into Deep Listening.

That is enough for now, you adorable creature. I invite you to try some of these things. I am busy Deeply Listening to my own Inner Bruder Lisch who is instructing me to create something for you.  See below!

I will leave you with a passage from my companion and guide in my life – the book Women Who Run With the Wolves by Dr. Clarissa Pinkola-Estes:

“So what comprises the Wild Woman? She is all that is of instinct, of the worlds both seen and hidden…….She is intuition, she is far-seer, she is deep listener, she is loyal heart. She encourages humans to remain multi-lingual: fluent in the languages of dreams, passion, and poetry. She whispers from night dreams, she leaves behind on the terrain of a woman’s soul a coarse hair and muddy footprints. These fill women with longing to find her, free her, and love her.”

Enrolment is now open for my two-day in-person Soulful Living Workshop in Calgary Alberta  inspired by the book “Women Who Run with the Wolves” by Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estés. Dates are Saturday Oct 21 and Sunday Oct 22nd.  I hope you join us! 

Find our more and register HERE.