How Could Anyone?

Posted on October 17, 2024 by Bob Patrick

I remember the first time I ever saw, heard and sang the hymn, How Could Anyone, from our Singing the Journey hymnal by Libby Roderick.

How could anyone ever tell you–
You were anything less than beautiful?
How could anyone ever tell you
You were less than whole?
How could anyone fail to notice–
That your loving is a miracle?
How deeply you’re connected to my soul.

It was over 15 years ago, and I can still remember how suddenly the tears filled my eyes, how I couldn’t sing because of the feelings running through my heart and body. 

If we listen deeply to our bodies, they will tell us what we are carrying around. There have been monumental studies demonstrating how powerfully and accurately our bodies hold the memory of our experiences, the highest joys and the most devastating of sorrows, trauma and grief. They hold even and especially memories of events that we no longer can recall with our minds. And, they will show us if we listen deeply.

The day we first sang that song at UUCG, no particular memory came to mind for me, but the emotion and feeling certainly did. I was immediately not only resonating with what it feels like to be told that I am less than whole, but I recalled stories that others have shared with me of the same wounding messages they had received. I am afraid that it is a truth about human experience–so far–that we are wounded as we grow up, and unless we learn another way, we become those who wound others, in turn. 

When we listen to our deep wounds, I think they can become a kind of spiritual radar–tuning us into the wounds in others. When our listening brings us into proximity with another wounded soul, that’s where the miracle of our loving connects us, soul to soul. 

Listening to our wounds draw us close.
Loving connects us.
Healing begins. 

~Bob Patrick

Posted in The Practice of Deep Listening | Tagged | Leave a comment

Inner Voice

Posted on October 16, 2024 by admin

Thursday, October 10, 2024 was World Mental Health Day. Ever since the COVID
pandemic opened new doors to conversations about mental health, we have discovered
just what isolation does to the human mind, body and soul. The pain of that isolation is
still palpable in my mind and heart even at present.

For the majority of the pandemic time frame I had only myself and my cat Benny for company outside of Zoom meetings and fast food drive-thrus with a mask and hand sanitizer on the ready. Reading that now makes me chuckle, but at the time it was no laughing matter. As painful as it was to not receive hugs and hold hands with my supporters, I learned a lesson in a most difficult yet profound way: I had to learn to comfort myself.

It took most of the duration of the pandemic and many weepy phone calls with supporters to realize that I could utilize my inner voice to soothe and comfort myself when others were not available or able to.

Self-care is an important aspect of mental health for the simple reason that we can only
carry what we can hold for any given moment- our own pain, and that of others and the
world as well. I am still learning to practice deep listening to my inner voice in moments
of emotional turbulence. Sometimes I do need to reach out; just being heard makes the
pain less of a mountain to being a more manageable molehill. But I am discovering that
I can also give that coaching to myself. Deep listening to our own souls is not only a
survival skill, it’s a way of getting to know ourselves, giving our lives richer meaning, and
thus true healing.

~Jen Garrison

Posted in The Practice of Deep Listening | Tagged | Leave a comment

Deeper Listening

Posted on October 15, 2024 by Bob Patrick

As we consider the practice of deep listening, it might be a clearer practice if we focused on “deeper” listening, allowing ourselves to take steps into deeper, and deeper listening.

In terms of hearing sounds, if our ears work well enough, we are always capable of hearing sounds. Deeper listening means that we pause whatever has our attention, and focus on the actual sounds we perceive right now.

When we become aware of specific sounds, deeper listening invites us to consider the context of those sounds. Are they expected or unexpected for the context, and based on that place in context, what do they communicate to us?

When the context of sounds begin to send messages to us, deeper listening invites curiosity about the meaning those messages hold for us.

When deeper listening brings sounds into focus and we begin to hear them in context, and the context begins to communicate messages to us, and the meaning of the messages begin to move us into some way or another–we have moved into deeper listening. In fact, maybe at this point, we are on the verge of deep listening. 

That original sound might be the sound of wind blowing through the trees (actual sounds), which I notice in my neighborhood on a day that I didn’t expect to be windy (context with communication). As the wind blows, I see more and more leaves falling from the trees, and there is the subtle message: fall really is upon us. The temperatures are getting cooler. Look at those beautiful colors. The seasons are changing. This is the time of year that many of my relatives and friends have birthdays (messages being sent). I spend some time thinking about them, remembering those who have passed away. Feelings of relationships past and present surface, and a sense of where I fit into them arises (meaning).

Deeper listening can start with the very next sound that we hear.

~Bob Patrick

Posted in The Practice of Deep Listening | Tagged | Leave a comment

Listening To My Land

Posted on October 14, 2024 by admin

Recently, a CUUPS Gathering featured a ritual and meditation about deep listening to the spirits of the earth around us. Before I started the ritual and meditation there were many questions about what connecting with the spirits of the land meant and how it was done. 

I do this in a few different ways, but they all involve deep listening to the world around me. As I explained my methods I remembered when we moved into our new house how I spent hours outside in the backyard inspecting, looking, listening and breathing with the plants, animals and unseen on our property. 

Out of that interaction with our new home and land I felt a choking sensation and knew that the trees were crying out for help because the invasive ivy was choking out everything they had. I had already seen the devastation of this ivy on the side yard where an oak tree stood dead due to ivy’s destruction. 

In my mind I can do all this, I can live with so much love through deep listening to the land I’m on, but I can’t quickly fix the problem. So I made a promise to my land to listen to it with love and do all that I can to fix it. It will take time and love for my body as well, but that means I’m listening, right? 

~Candice Carver

Posted in The Practice of Deep Listening | Tagged | Leave a comment

Deep Listening Is Like A Question

Posted on October 11, 2024 by Bob Patrick

Have you ever had moments when you realized that the question you were asking was the wrong one? Not that it was totally unreasonable, or out of context, but that it was just not focused enough? It didn’t take you were you needed to be.

Bruce Perry and Oprah Winfrey illustrate this in the book they co-authored together: What Happened to You? They observe a phenomenon that most of us have experienced even if we did not realize it until after the fact. We encounter someone, known or unknown to us, who is talking or acting in ways that seem really out of bounds to us: crazy, irrational, insane, unhinged–we say. That person could even be ourselves! What is the question that rises up within us, spoken or unspoken?

What’s wrong with you?!!!

It’s a loaded question because it not only utters our confusion mixed with curiosity and likely some fear. It lands on the other person with full on judgment: there is something wrong with you. You are broken. I can’t accept you. You are not welcome. 

We might not intend to convey those extra messages, but they do communicate themselves when we ask “what is wrong with you?”

We have been asking the wrong question, and it’s not because we didn’t have reason and context for asking “what’s wrong with you?”

The better question is: what happened to you?

I read the Perry/Winfrey book years ago, but it’s message comes back to me often. It reminds me that this practice of deep listening is very much like asking questions and working on our questions until they become the one that takes us to the heart of things. 

What happened to you? We can ask the question of anyone, including ourselves, without ever saying an audible word–and allow it to take us to the heart of the other person, or better, to our own hearts. We can stay there a long time and return there often, and open to deep understanding. 

~Bob Patrick

Posted in The Practice of Deep Listening | Tagged | Leave a comment

I Am Fat

Posted on October 10, 2024 by admin

Growing up, I remember the label on my pants: “husky.” That’s what society had decided I was, as if that single word could sum up my entire existence. I’ve never been skinny, and I grew up hearing comments about my body, from my stepfather. His cruel words, combined with the world’s obsession with thinness, took a deep toll on my self-esteem. Overeating became my refuge, a way to cope with the hurt and insecurity that I tried to ignore. For years, I struggled in silence, convinced that my body was the problem, the reason I didn’t fit in—both literally and metaphorically.

But now, in my 40s, I’m waking up. I’m listening—not to the voices that told me I was unworthy, but to my own body and soul. They are telling me that I’ve been mistreated, not just by those who should have loved me but by a world that judges based on size. I’ve come to realize that the treatment I endured was wrong, and I’m no longer willing to accept it. It’s not just about me, either. It’s about seeking justice for all of us who’ve been marginalized, overlooked, and discriminated against simply because of our size.

It took doctors three long years to find the correct diagnosis for my back pain. During that time, I heard the same dismissive phrase over and over again: “If you lose weight, you wouldn’t be in so much pain.” They acted as if my size was the only reason for my suffering. But I knew better. I’d always been overweight, and I had never experienced the kind of debilitating pain that left me bedridden after something as simple as walking up a hill. It wasn’t easy to challenge the doctors, to stand up and say, “I don’t think it’s because of my weight,” especially when that’s all I had been hearing for most of my life.

Now, I listen in a new way. I listen to the stories of others who have faced discrimination because of their weight. I hear the pain in their voices, the frustration, the anger. And I find strength in these stories. I know that I’m not alone, and I’ve found a cause that resonates deeply with me: seeking justice for those of us who have been dismissed, shamed, and belittled because of our size. 

I channel this desire for justice by spreading awareness, by talking about the National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance (NAAFA) and by making sure that people know that size doesn’t determine worth. Size doesn’t define us. We are more than our bodies, and we deserve to be seen, heard, and treated with respect. This journey isn’t easy, but it’s one I’m proud to be on—for myself and for others like me.

I now proudly say: “I am fat”

~Candice Carver

Posted in The Practice of Deep Listening | Tagged | Leave a comment

Listening to the Wake Up Calls

Posted on October 9, 2024 by Bob Patrick

It is early October, and I went out into the woods early one morning. At first, all I heard was the noise of my own mind jumping from one thing to another.  Soon, something seemed to be asking to be heard. What was that? 

Crickets. It was the song of crickets playing their “fall is cool” tune, a tune and rhythm so fast and intense that it sounds like a soprano voice with a beautiful vibrato filling the woods and . . . me!  Once I tuned in to the sound of the crickets, other voices wanted in: Crows calling to each other, then Chickadees and Wrens. I know all of these birds, and while I had not seen one yet, I could hear them. I imagined all their chatter to be about where to find food that morning, finding it, and calling their mates to the treasure. Before long, another sound took over: a school bus. Knowing the bus schedules like I do, it occurred to me that this was the bus picking up the little ones, elementary aged students, for their school day, and I imagined the tiny bundles standing at the stops with parents or grandparents nearby. I imagined school bus drivers all over our nation waking up well before daylight to begin their sacred journeys. I heard the back door open and knew that it meant the arrival of our dogs out into the yard and the beginning of their day of sniffing and eating and barking and napping and general caregiving to us.

Listening in the woods woke me up to so many realities beyond myself. It’s one of the things listening does–to deliver to our minds, hearts and imaginations the interdependent web of which we are all a part and the invitation to take up our places in it again. It strikes me as I ponder that early morning experience, that tuning in to sounds and what they bring is like opening to the sound of the Tibetan bell that we invite to sound in our Sunday services, a mindful invitation to open ourselves to the wonders of life even, perhaps especially, when we are surrounded by suffering. Isn’t it, in fact, the suffering that often closes us up? And listening, deeply, can open our way again.

~Robert Patrick

Posted in The Practice of Deep Listening | Tagged , | Leave a comment