I woke up this morning a little "achy" from a day of extensive digging in the landscaping yesterday.
It would have been easy for me to complain about how my body was hurting, not responding the way I would have it be in my imagination.
Then I "listened" to what my body was trying to say. I decided what it wanted was some stretching! It wasn't trying to attack me. It wasn't betraying me. It wasn't trying to make my life hard.
It wanted attention, nurturing.
So I stretched.
As I listened more, I heard it request a soak in the tub to relax and restore my muscles.
That's what it got.
Guess what? It's no longer screaming for my attention. I listened beyond the moaning to what it was needing and responded.
(Carol with some of the rocks we dug out of the ground to make room for plants)
Then I thought of how often I interact with humans who are cranky and a bit irritable. They aren't always out to get me. They aren't necessarily trying to be cruel. They aren't nasty or trying to take something from me.
They're asking for love. They want me to hear what they're not saying in my language. Their pain represents a need for which they don't often know how to ask me directly for help.
So, today, I will look for how circumstances that might seem unpleasant on the surface, are an opportunity for me to hear an expression of suffering, a request for help.
Seems like a way I can be of service, instead of bothered by those who, as one of my clients once said, "are speaking in code".
They speak in code because they don't know how to ask. They are hoping I am better at listening than they are at asking.
Their whining, complaining, gossiping, and other expressions of pain, are calling me to a higher awareness, to being a better person, more compassionate, more understanding.
How does your body talk to you? Tiredness,? Fatigue? Aches and pains? Relxation? Calm? Do you know its “foreign” language? What is it needing from you? Rest? Nourishment? Water? Exercise? ? Less sugar? A Nap?
How do your fellow humans speak to you in a language you may miss? What does their negativity say? Their whining? Their agony? Their complaining? Can you hear the language they’re speaking? Can you hear what they’re asking for when they don’t know how to ask for it? Remember, a complaint always has a hidden request in it. Do you hear the request, or judge the language the person is using to express it?
My goal is to listen better this week.
