I have the morning off today. I slept in. I went out for a walk. I got coffee. I sat by the river near our home. Thoughts swirling through my mind. Like they usually do. But this time with a long enough pause to articulate some of them.
I recently watched a modern day Sherlock Holmes episode in which he described his experience of sensory overload by vividly articulating the cacophony that he hears at any given moment in time. It resonated with me deeply.
I previously wrote a post on why I listen. And this morning I was thinking about why I share. I voraciously listen. To books. To articles. To TEDtalks. To clients. To friends. To family members. To politics. To religion. To nature. To silence. I soak it in like a dry and brittle sponge. Daily. Hourly.
When I listen. I learn. I grow. I expand. I create space within myself for another. Another person. Another belief. Another emotion. Another story. I become inspired. I become thoughtful. I become curious. And ultimately I become connected.
In all the listening. To all the noises around me. I simultaneously feel a sense of chaos and of beauty. Of overwhelmed and of purpose. Of cacophony yet intricately woven within, of meaning making which becomes euphony.
The more I listen. The more I want to share what I hear with others. Ask anyone who knows me, friends and clients alike. They will tell you how I share. Songs. Articles. Book titles. TEDtalks. Comic strips. Sermons. Art work. Experiences I’ve had. I share. Because I can’t help it. It’s in my DNA.
As I get older I am becoming more comfortable owning who I am. How I function and what makes me tic. And in my own experience of blossoming, I am finding that I can’t help but invite and even challenge others to do the same. A bud must eventually open. Or it dies all closed up tightly and never having expressed itself. That is tragedy of the most offensive kind. A life unlived.
It is in the nature that is chaos all around us that we are able to witness beauty. I don’t know that we would honestly see beauty as we do, if it did not exist alongside and within the chaos that enshrouds so much of our life journey. That has given me such a profound sense of hope and healing in my own journey and this is yet another reason why I share. How could I not share hope? How could I keep that to myself? It would be the equivalent of the bud that never opens to blossom.
I sit with clients each and everyday, listening to their stories. Their hurts. Their confusion. Their longing. Their loses. And my heart leans in toward all that chaos. Cacophony. And then there is a pause. A long, meaningful pause. A sitting in silence. An honoring of heartache. And then I cannot help it. I feel a sense of hope within my being that I cannot stifle or contain. It’s tiny bubbles effervesce. Sometimes in words. And often times in a simple presence.
I believe that we all contain within us the capacity for chaos. We also contain the propensity toward rigidity. And often times life compels us to dance between these two poles. We swing between our chaos and our rigidity in attempts to control life’s happenings and circumstances. And for most of us, we reach sheer exhaustion at some point. Which necessitates pause and often times seeking of support or outside perspective.
It is most often the case that we utilize all our resources. We expend all the energy we have. And we reach out only in desperation. Grasping for something to hold onto. We recognize our interdependence as a human species. We acknowledge our fragility. Our vulnerability. And it is within that moment that we become susceptible to change. Perhaps it is our desperation that creates the opening. Whatever the origin, this is where the real work commences. We’re ready to acknowledge our real desire for our situation to change. And without our knowing it we embark on our personal journey of changing ourselves within the safety and connection of another.
This is why I listen. This is why I share.
We forget this in our modern day self sufficiency that compels us to function as independently as possible. We ignore our inner longings for intimacy of being known by someone else. Of being seen and heard for who we are. Of experiencing a connection that provides a literal meaning for breathing.
Connection is so vital to the human heart that it will literally stop beating in its absense. Relationship research has shown us that the most vulnerable among us, children and elderly alike, literally give up the will to live and their heart eventually stops beating in sheer protest of isolation and lack of human connection.
For many of us we have experienced pain and the raw tragedy of being hurt by another human being. And in our self protection we withdraw. We pull back and we attempt to live life with protective armor. But we don’t realize that we do not function healthfully in isolation. We do not thrive in isolation. We slowly begin to lose hope and identity. We cannot blossom without connection. This can be argued philosophically. But in actuality it cannot. The science is simple. We need an other.
This is why I listen. This is why I share.
I simply cannot imagine a life lived any other way.
Chelsea Bliss Ward