‘Because there is only one of you in all time, your expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist. It is not your business to determine how good it is. It is your business to keep the channel open.’ (Martha Graham)
Introduction:A new paradigm for learning
We all know what the traditional paradigm for learning is. You show up for this course as the student, the one who doesn’t know, who is needing to get somewhere. I am the teacher, the one who knows, who will give you the information you need, and help you to get where you want to go. I call this the ‘sage on the stage’ model. Twenty five years of teaching and coaching have shown me that it doesn’t work, not when it comes to deep learning, the kind that changes our lives.
The new paradigm is based on a different understanding. It is learning from the inside out. In this course I am offering you a container, a fertile ground in which you can engage and participate in new ways of interacting, thinking, listening, questioning, and being. In everything we do together, I am inviting you to accept yourself as you are, to be as you are, to express yourself as you are. Transformation and evolution do not happen by trying to get somewhere, but by unpacking what is right here. Everything you need is already inside you, waiting to reveal itself. The process that you engage in helps you to be present, responsive, curious, and aware of what is going on inside you and around you. This awareness is your most precious resource. It is this awareness that will open a whole field of possibilities, and allow you to make radically different choices, moment to moment.
Collective wisdom
As a teacher and coach I am not pretending to have all the answers that you seek. My job is to call forth the profound intelligence, love and freedom that is your true nature. This wisdom belongs to us all-each one of us holds a piece of it. When we meet together, united with a strong and clear intention, we create a field in which our collective wisdom emerges. You hear yourself saying exactly what I need to hear. I ask the question that you have been waiting for. This is actually how life works. We live in a miraculous world. We can learn how to be powerful allies for each other.
The intelligence of the heart
What is the heart, really? It’s easy to associate the word ‘heart’ with a soft and mushy emotional feeling. That has nothing to do with our real heart. Our heart is our core, the deepest truest place within us, our authentic being. It’s how we are when we let go of protecting and defending ourselves, when we release our need for approval, security and safety. The heart is our natural state, how we are when we are not trying to impress, but have simply relaxed into our genuine nature. The heart can be gentle and soft like water; it can be fierce and wild like thunder. Once we learn how to connect with this raw, open, dynamic place, we discover that the heart is profoundly intelligent. If we call this ‘heart wisdom’ into our lives, it begins to guide us and function for us in a way the mind knows little about. Much of what we do in this course is about learning to listen to, respect and embody the deep intelligence of the heart in our lives.
‘What
We speak
Becomes the house we live in.Who will want to sleep in your bed
If the roof leaks
Right above
It?’ (Hafiz)
Finding Your Voice, an evolutionary process
The process of finding your voice, learning how to speak and listen from the heart, is a powerful evolutionary process. It brings clarity, courage, creativity, wisdom, and kindness to the whole way you live.
Why is this such a powerful process? Because we are interacting all the time, but usually with our conditioned mind. We are on automatic. We speak and listen in a dream, not with our full presence and awareness. If I look at you through my own conditioning, I don’t see you, I see my own ideas and projections. This purpose of this course is to facilitate an awakening process in you, as you bring the light of your own awareness into the whole way you communicate.
Building the container
The container in which you meet and express is crucial to this process. Participants are asked from the beginning to be as present, honest, and kind as they know how to be. You agree to listen without judgment, to allow yourself ‘not to know’ and to release your attachment to outcome. As you learn how to let go of the conditioned mind, which is geared towards knowing and controlling, the heart opens to a space without agenda. You learn to pay attention to the process by which things evolve and unfold. You discover the freedom that comes when you trust yourself, and accept what is given to you, moment to moment,
The power of silence
We practice allowing silence in this course, instead of moving away from it, or trying to fill it up with something. We can call this meditation or contemplation, if those words do not intimidate us. Or we can simply call it sitting in silence, not trying to think, not trying not to think. I like the term ‘Point Zero,’ coined by Michelle Cassou. Point Zero is a place of rest, openness and deep receptivity. It’s the source of our dynamism and creativity. When we speak from this place, our words carry a depth, authenticity and aliveness that is tangible. When we listen from the silence we are present, attentive, and sensitive to our entire environment. Our heart opens in this silence, and as we connect on a deeper level with people, a natural and uncontrived compassion starts to flow in us.
Natural Healing and Intimacy
The heart of this process is the listening practice. To be heard and seen as we are is one of the deepest needs we have as human beings. For many of us, it was a need that was not really fulfilled as a child. Most people carry a deep sense of not having been fully heard and seen. This sense makes it very difficult to listen to others- it’s hard to give what we have never received. A woman in a class who had just practiced ‘open listening’ for the first time, said with great feeling, “I’ve had this feeling for so long, ’no-one listens, no-one listens.’ But now I’m realizing that I have never really listened either. I didn’t know how.” Until we discover how to drop the barriers that separate us, we are cut off from genuine intimacy. We are afraid of really being ourselves! So many people right now long for this intimacy, floating in the loneliness of cyber space, living in a world of cell phones, recorded messages, MP3’s and super highways. Real intimacy and deep connection can radically change our lives, one connection at a time.
The Guiding Principle-living systems
One of the guiding principles of this process is the scientific research that has been done on ‘living systems.’ The universe is full of living systems-human beings, trees, planets, organizations. Living systems are self-organizing. They grow, move, and evolve spontaneously, as they interact with their environment. No one tells them what to do or how to be. They are guided by their own innate intelligence.
In order for a living system to self-organize, it needs to be open and flexible. As long as it remains open, it can receive all the feedback it needs from the environment. If it is flexible, it is free to respond to that feedback in the most natural and appropriate way.
As the light of awareness penetrates our speaking, listening and interacting, the whole field of communication functions more and more as an open system. As we speak, we hear ourselves with a newfound clarity. We discover new and surprising things in ourselves and in others .We begin to see patterns of thought and belief that were not visible before. We notice the structure and content of our thinking and how it impacts our life. We can start to see that we are actually constructing our own experience, moment to moment, through the way we use language. Our authentic voice, and the impulses that come from our core, become available to us. We can feel the power of our real ‘yes’ and our real ‘no’ and learn to stay with what is true for us, instead of moving towards approval, validation and false harmony. We discover what the most important thing is for us, what matters most. This is like our north star, our own inner guidance system. Once this becomes clear, our whole open system self-organizes in relation to this fundamental intention.
The end of self-abandonment
We can understand evolution in another way-simply growing up, learning how to stand on our own two feet. As this happens, we are no longer ruled by our survival system, which wants control, safety and approval. To be a fully mature human being is no small thing. It opens a fire in our belly, a deep power that comes from the core of our being. This power allows us to be ourselves, even when it is not easy. Until we access this power, we will abandon our true self again and again, as we try to be the way others want us to be, or the way our conditioned mind thinks we should be. These belief and fixations trap us in a narrow and confined way of being, cut off from the courage and spontaneous wisdom of our heart.
Your multi-dimensional being
Who you really are is not a fixed and static thing. You are a dynamic, changing, constantly unfolding being, expressing yourself in many dimensions all at the same time. It’s a profound joy to connect with each other in a ‘multi-dimensional’ way. I can listen to you with my whole being-body, mind, heart, spirit. I can hear what is ‘between the lines,’ the messages you are conveying without words. I can recognize your essential being, the core of who you are. This doesn’t take a long time. Once you begin to fall into the heart, things can open up in a moment. All of a sudden, the stranger you are speaking to is no longer a stranger. This is actually a radical shift in consciousness. The indigenous people speak of it as awakening to the sacred web of life that joins us all. We begin to realize the incredible power we have to impact each other every time we meet. How would we live if we knew how to bless and lift up the people in our world, just by being true to who we are? Here is a listening prayer:
‘May we all be free from suffering and the root of suffering.
May our practice of listening release the illusion of separation.
May it heal the listener, heal the one who is heard, and bring
Healing forth in an ever-expanding circle that knows no boundaries.’
The Power of Inquiry
We ask ourselves and each other questions as we speak and listen. Questions like, ‘Who am I ?’ ‘What do I really want?’ ‘What do you really love?’ What matters most to you?’ We drop these questions deep into our being and wait for whatever arises. Inquiry is a powerful and mysterious process that calls forth the living truth of our own being.
A Natural Leader
Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.’ (Nelson Mandela)
The more you practice being authentic and present when you speak, the more you build the power to live in alignment with your deepest self. To stand up and speak out when you need to say something, to remain silent when nothing needs to be said-these abilities come to you as you realize that the greatest gift you have to give is your authentic being. The indigenous people have always know this-they call your authentic being ‘original medicine.’ When you access this kind of power, you become a natural leader. A leader is someone who stays in integrity and communicates an unconditional respect for everyone. A real leader recognizes each person as a leader in their own way, needing to participate fully in life. When you connect with your own voice, you can use it to empower and call forth the voices of the people in your world.
Uncovering the treasure
I often see your true nature as a treasure chest, locked up and dropped into the depths of your being. Each one of you has resources, insights, courage, wisdom, power and love available to you in abundance. Speaking and listening from the heart draw forth this power, and make it accessible. Listening to people speak for the last twenty years has given me the opportunity to witness these gifts emerging again and again. People are often astonished. “Did I really say that?” they’ll ask. “But I didn’t know that I knew that.”
Finding your voice is finding your integrity, your passion, your gifts, your deepest longing, your vocation, your delight.
Learning how to speak and listen from our core is not a luxury for those of us alive in the twenty first century. It is an urgent necessity, key to our personal and collective evolution.
Participants express:
‘Making connections like this melts our separateness.’
S. Rowe, Nelson, B.C. Canada
‘Your course is not a typical study group but an opportunity to come face to face with our true self.’
J. Taylor, Nelson, B.C. Canada
‘It has changed my life in sudden and surprising ways.’
C. dePape, Kootenay Bay, B.C.
‘So much truth, it’s revolutionary-to be fully present, and listen with openness. Now I know how to include people.’ L. Booth, Slocan Valley, B,C,
‘The Heart of Communication’ is offered as two different courses or workshops:
- Public Speaking
Communicating in the following situations:
- Seminars and workshops
- Meetings
- Presentations
- Forming Alliances
- Team building
- Networking
- The classroom
- Community and family gatherings
- Job and media interviews
- Client relations
- Personal Communication
Transforming the nature of your personal conversations.
The Public Speaking and Personal Communication ‘Heart of Communication’ programs are offered as an 8 week course, two hours a week; as a weekend workshop, or through a series of personal coaching sessions, conducted by phone and email. The 8 week course can also be done by phone and email. If you are interested, I am happy to come to your town or city for a weekend workshop.
