Monday, March 30, 2009

I'm not a very good listener

What is it about following the heart that scares so many people? Why do we have to care about what others will think? Why do others need to think anything anyway?

Do you know why I don't follow my heart? Fear and being uncertain about what my heart is saying. Listening is hard for me. I'm great at pretending that I'm listening, but if truth be told I very rarely "hear" what I'm listening to. That is sad. And it's incredibly rude. I wonder if people can tell that I'm not really listening to them. I know my kids can tell. They call me on it quite a bit. "Mom, are you listening to me?" and "You're not paying attention!!" are two things I hear more than I should.

So what should I do first? Listen to others so that I can begin to hear what my heart is saying, or listen to my heart so that I can begin to hear others? The answer I am receiving is that I need to listen to my heart before I can hear others. That makes sense. How can I give others something that I don't give myself? Pretending doesn't work. I am good at it, but it serves me no purpose.

"Act as if", is a big 12 step slogan. I hated acting as if. It didn't help me become that which I acted to be. It made me a liar. It made me a fake. My words never matched my heart. I believe that that false identity led me back into my addiction. I should have been told that the reason I was an addict was because I didn't trust myself and that all I had to do was truly embrace and love myself as I was. I should have been shown how to do that. I should have been shown how to listen.

I really don't want to focus on what happened back then. I just want to say that today I can only follow my heart if I listen to what is inside of me. I have a Divine Voice in me. We all do. That voice just needs to be heard. The heart only speaks the truth. There is no need to "act as if".

It is incredibly difficult to listen when my chaotic life is happening. All the noise and all the people that I feel I need to be responsible and present for can be a distraction. Learning how to be present and in the Now is a full time job right now. I may never receive any monetary compensation for this job, but what I will receive emotionally and spiritually are compensation enough.

So for today, I am going to follow my heart. I'm going to truly listen and hear and trust. Trust that it doesn't matter what anyone else thinks about what I do with my days. It only matters that I follow the Divine Guidance that I receive every single day.

The world would be a beautiful place if we all could do this.

Just my thoughts.

Jill

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