Dear Friends,

Our Soul Matters theme for the month of October is Deep Listening. What is deep listening, and why might we practice it? Dr. Rachel Naomi Remen, MD, offers this reflection: “One of my patients told me that when she tried to tell her story people often interrupted her to tell her that they once had something just like that happen to them. Subtly her pain became a story about themselves.  Eventually she stopped talking to most people. It was just too lonely.” We converse by swapping stories, finding the links that might create a synergy or affinity between us. We listen, and deeply, when the point is to hear and to simply receive what another person needs to share. We are not waiting for our turn. We are not waiting to offer our version. We receive and thus offer a kind of care that puts the storyteller at the center of the exchange. One half of the exchange is to offer. One half of the exchange is to receive. While this might appear to be lopsided communication, it isn’t.

Listening deeply is a gift you give to the storyteller, giving your full presence to what they are saying. In deep listening, you are hearing the shape of the story, the silences, too, the feelings under the telling equally as much as the details. When you tune yourself as a receiver, you are enabling the storyteller to hear themselves and only themselves, without interruption, judgment, correction, or hurry. When you quiet your own inclinations and listen deeply, you are enabling another to hear the richness and the importance of their own story.

All of us deserve to be heard. And we grow by listening deeply to the stories of those whose stories are most different from our own. May we listen deeply and also receive the gift of deep listening as you remember, today and every day, that you are loved, you are worthy, you are welcome, and you are needed. May you feel it so, and may it be so.

Blessings, Rev. Rita