True Listening is Love in Action

I’m working my way through another amazing book — The Road Less Traveled, by Dr. M. Scott Peck.  

Dr. Peck, discusses the attributes that — in his opinion — make for a fulfilled human being, based largely on his experiences as a psychiatrist and person.  He also encourages us to confront our problems which would enable us to reach a higher level of self-understanding.

He subdivides his “wisdom” into three parts:  discipline, love, and grace.

*** 

Discipline

He describes four aspects of discipline:

• Delaying gratification
• Accepting personal responsibility
• Dedicating oneself to truth (both in word and deed)
• Balancing and handling conflicting desires and necessities

Love

Many mistakenly think that love is a feeling; it is not.  Love is an action — not a feeling. 

• One must put effort into loving.  Love takes work.
• Love takes courage — because moving out of yourself, in the face of fear, takes courage. 
• Therefore, the action of love takes work and courage.  

• When we love another, we give that person our attention; we attend to that person’s growth and well-being. 
• We exercise our attention by listening.  To do this well, listening requires work.
• Therefore, true listening is love in action.

*** 

There’s much more to the book, but I want us to stop here and really reflect on this point. 

True listening is love in action… 

Therefore, stop whatever you’re doing and truly listen to your loved ones…

.

Getting the Word Out

With the writing of the first book done, it’s time to turn some of our attention to promotion.  I’m relying on Katherine to spearhead this part, because she has the experience in giving workshops and presentations — and she holds the confidence that she can share our message to a banquet hall full of people, with no problem.   The only reason why she hasn’t done this yet is because she’s waiting on the book to be in our hands.

I know… I know!  Technically, we still don’t have a book in our hands, but we will soon… <fingers crossed>

In the meantime, we’ve begun strategizing as to what avenues would work best for our goals. 

 

I told you about a therapist group proposing a workshop for a maximum of 20 people.  That got us thinking:  Doing relationship workshops for this small group may not be the best way of getting our message out — especially, if we want to reach as many people as possible… as quickly as possible. 

It may be better if we focused on a different path — one that already has a larger, built-in audience.  For example, one fifteen-minute interview  for a TV or radio talk show has the potential of reaching hundreds and hundreds of people in one broadcast — depending on the interviewer’s audience base.   

Think about it:  Doing a TV or radio interview would reach a much larger audience than 20 people at a time.  Also, they post and archive their programs on their websites.  This allows those who weren’t able to hear the live program to replay the program at a later time.  This Internet access and replay ability can give even more people the opportunity to learn about what we’re doing.

While we’re on the subject of the World Wide Web, there are also a number of bloggers who like to interview authors and share these interviews with their readers.  

Such collaboration is good for both the interviewer and interviewee.  The interviewer is able to provide guests for his or her program, while the interviewee gets her or his message out to a wide variety of people. 

So, once we get the book in our hands — which will be soon <fingers crossed> — that’s the next step we’re going to take.

.

But Where’s My Piece of Cake?!

Yes, I enjoyed the women’s retreat.  I really did, but do you remember that little carrot — no, that piece of chocolate cake — that Katherine dangled in front of me to get me there?

We were supposed to have time together to work on our book.  We were supposed to finish the new section that Katherine wanted added.  This weekend was supposed to move us leaps and bounds ahead on this project.

Well, as you may have guessed, that didn’t quite happen. 

So, everything is postponed for a bit longer…

.

Different Strokes for Different Folks

I picked up another book on relationships, titled "Dear Lover:  A woman’s guide to men, sex, and love’s deepest bliss."  This is a very intimate book by David Deida.  I hesitate to recommend it because you’d need to be at a certain level to appreciate his perspective.  You’d have to be open to surrendering yourself to his energy and trust he’ll take you where you yearn to be…

Katherine suggested the book, and since I trust her judgment — and since she DID use the words “must read it” — I picked up a copy from Amazon.

While I was there, I checked out the reviews on this and on his other books.  Most were positive, but there was one that was… well, here’s just a portion of it:

“It's difficult to write what I feel about this book.  I read as much of it as I could stomach and then threw it into the trash in the hope no one would ever find it.  This man, the author, is either terminally misled or has an ego the size of the universe.  He knows how women feel?  Excuse me?  When was he a woman?  I pity the poor woman who reads this and accepts it hook, line, and sinker.  He is so off base as to be laughable, if I didn't worry that some women would actually take him seriously.”

So, just from the few reviews I scanned, I’m sure that the book will hit a core with most people.  Whether, it resonates with you in a positive or negative way, I can’t guess — but I’m enjoying the book.

I actually started reading it while waiting in a car repair shop — and yes, I’m still dealing with the same car issue, but this time I’ve gone to a DIFFERENT repair shop.  Wish me good luck with this go-around…

Anyway… back to the book.  It was interesting reading such an intimate book in this masculine-filled setting. 

Picture this:  It’s 7:00 in the morning.  The sun has barely broken through the morning’s fog.  I walk into the repair shop, carrying with me a book titled Dear Lover.   The manager checks me in, I surrender my keys and car to him, and I sit down to wait… and wait… and wait.

I open Deida’s book and scanned through the Forward and Introduction.  Normally, I wouldn’t have even read those sections, but since Katherine had suggested the book, I thought I had better read those pages, too…

It wasn’t until I got to the first chapter that I started feeling the intimate power of the book — and the fact that I was sitting in the environment surrounded by men was a bit unnerving…

Because of the activity around me, I couldn’t just let Deida’s words pour over me.  Instead, I kept flowing back and forth between David’s spiritual place he was taking me to and this physical place I was tied to — this waiting room filled with strangers’ voices and sounds of banging of metal, clicking of computer keys, and jangling of car keys…

What was really interesting was, as I drifted in and out of these two worlds, I carried a bit if each to the other, and the men in the room responded.  The two guys behind the counter couldn’t have been more attentive to me, if they had tired! 

The guy in the waiting room started up a conversation with me.  It started with our concerns about our respective car problems and transformed into a discussion about appreciation for integrity and trust.  He shared his hopes and dreams for his two teenagers…

Before we knew it, his car was fixed and mine… well, wasn’t.  My car needed a part that needed to be ordered, but instead of having me wait 5 hours for the part to show up (like the other place did), one of the mechanics offered to drive me home.  They also made sure I had a way back…

As I waited for my ride, the “waiting-room gentleman” was waiting for his car to come out of the garage.  We stood in the parking lot together, wrapping up our previous conservation, preparing for our goodbyes.

It sounds weird, but I was sad to leave.  It felt like I was saying goodbye to a friend — one who I will not be seeing again… 

In that brief time together, we never exchanged names… just our “selves.”

.  

Why Don’t You Come Over More Often?

I just came back from an acquaintance’s house.  Her sister was visiting from out of town, and she invited me over… adding that I don’t come to visit often enough.  

What’s “interesting” about this visit was… every time I started to talk, one of the sisters would interrupt me, turn to the other and say, “That reminds me about the time when we….”

And the two would continue their conversation, forgetting about me and my unfinished story.

This didn’t happen once, twice, or three times.  It happened throughout the visit with them.  I never could finish one story with them.

• They’d ask me a question, I’d start to answer, which jogged their memory about something else, and they’d go off chatting about that “something else.”
• They’d ask me a question, and just as I begin to answer, they’d ask the other what else she wanted to eat.
• They’d ask me a question, I’d start to answer, and they’d get up and walk off into another room, because they were tired of sitting at the table. 

How did the afternoon end?  Well… they asked me a question, and just as I started to answer, the phone rang and both of them got on the phone to talk to the caller.

It was then that I got up, waved my goodbyes, and headed out the door.

I wonder... why don’t I go over there more often?

.

Fly-By Acts of Attention

I've had an intense couple of weeks at the office, which ended with a 3-hour meeting with my manager.  I would share with you what happened in that meeting, but I still need my job — and the fact that I still have one is a miracle in itself.

Even though the rest of the week was pretty quiet at the office — and I still have a job to go to — I thought it would be wise for me to take a 3-day weekend from the office, to let things settle down a bit between my manager and me.

This day off gave Katherine and me an opportunity to get together to discuss our next steps in our book publishing pursuits.  As you can imagine, the last couple of weeks at the office has added more motivation for me to get our book published — the sooner the better.

As we were heading out of the restaurant where we met, Katherine noticed a lone gentleman ahead of us at the cashier register.  She complimented him on his hair and asked what products he uses.  They chatted about hair products, as he finished paying his bill.  He left with the biggest grin on his face.

A simple conversation about the guy’s hair made his evening.

It’s that easy.  Really, it’s that easy!

I don’t think people realize how important their presence is to another human being.  We don’t realize how, even as strangers, we can reach out to others — through a smile, an understanding nod, an encouraging compliment — and share our light with them, even if it’s only for a brief moment.

But, ironically, the mere act of sharing yourself with others — in these short bursts of focused attention — actually recharges your own batteries.  These quick, positive interactions — these “fly-by acts of attention” — actually rejuvenate you, like a summer rain.

This requires us to change our focus from ourselves to others.  We need to intentionally switch from an internal, self-center focus to an outward, attentive focus.  By focusing outside of ourselves and placing our intent on another person, our light intuitively reaches the target of our focused attention.  We affect them in that brief moment, by just being there with them — for that brief moment.

It takes just a moment of our time, but that moment has the power to change people’s days, weeks — and quite possibly — their lives.  We’ll never know…

If only we knew the power we held within us…

.

How Do You Reach Publishers?

How do you persuade another person to listen to you
When that person isn’t interested in what you have to say?

How do you give yourself to another person
When that person isn’t aware of what you have to give?

How do you show another person your passion
When that person doesn’t see you standing there?

How do you open another person’s mind
When that person’s mind is locked from the inside?

How do you touch another person’s heart
When that heart is full of material things?

How do you convince another person of your value
When that person values money over relationships?

How do you reach people like these
When you can’t even get their attention?

How?




.