Listen, Attend

Our work, our relationships, and our lives succeed or fail one conversation at a time. While no single conversation is guaranteed to transform a company, a relationship, or a life, any single conversation can. Speak and listen as if this is the most important conversation you will ever have with this person. It could be. Participate as if it matters. It does.

- Susan Scott

We spend much of our lives in conversation. We converse with our partners, our children, our parents, our workmates, our neighbors, everyone around us. How well we attend to the other person is often another story. We are often chatting while doing something else. Anything else. Driving. Watching TV. Making dinner. Texting. Listening to music. Watching for our stop on a bus or train.

People make a big deal out of young people (in particular) texting or being on social media rather than communicating face to face. In truth, some of those texts or social media conversations are very intense. The participants are attending closely to what the other is saying. Some of those conversations are skimmed and content or context missed. But that's true in face to face conversations as well. We're alive inside our own personal thoughts, actions, reactions, but not necessarily to what the other is communicating.

Each conversation we have with each person who is in our lives is important, significant in its own unique way. Conversations are about ebb and flow, the back and forth give-and-take of interactions. When we are distracted or focused on something other than the person with whom we are communicating, we miss cues to the deeper message behind their words.

We all want to feel heard, to be heard, to have another respond to us as though we are, in the moment, the most important person in the world. In truth, in those moments of deepest communication, we are that important. In order to receive that focus from another, we must be willing to give it. We must be willing to slow our pace. We must be willing to stop our attempt to 'multitask' and attend to another person. Listen. Attend. It's important.

How many times have you walked away from a conversation with no recall of its content? or its context? What has distracted you during your most recent conversation with another person? and the one before that? When was the last time you felt, thought or believed that another person was not paying attention while you were speaking to them? How did you feel? What can you do to keep your attention in your next conversation?

Ramadan Kareem

This particular New Moon brings with it the beginning of the Muslim blessing month of Ramadan. During Ramadan, all who are healthy and able participate in fasting from first light to last light every day. Experiencing Ramadan during summer in the Northern Hemisphere is long and exhausting.

Iftar, the breaking of the fast, traditionally begins with the eating of three dates at sunset. It is often a widely shared meal. Though I am not a practicing Muslim, I have had the great fortune of being invited to participate in three iftar meals. The first time was in the lower level of a private home with only women. Ten or eleven of us sat on low couches and large pillows scattered on the floor. I was the only non-Muslim woman present. Though I felt the awkwardness of an outsider, the women included me in every part of the ritual, the meal and the conversation. By the end of the nearly 90-minute time together, we were all smiling, laughing and embracing as we went our separate ways.

My other two times were during my time in Egypt. Muslim friends with whom I worked invited me to join their families. I was deeply touched by their offers. For each of those days, I participated in the full day fast: no food and no drink. Not the same as their month-long experience, I realize, but my meager way of honoring their invitation. The warmth and generosity of the people equaled what I had previously experienced and I went home from each iftar with a deeper sense of the blessing of Ramadan.

What celebrations bring you blessing? Have you shared in celebrations with strangers? What blessing have you found in them? Do you choose times to fast, to give something vital and precious up for a time? If so, what have you experienced?

Learning Curve

Learning curves are a natural part of learning new tasks, new jobs, new means of expression. No matter how old I get, every time I find myself in the midst of a new process, I recognize that I am also beginning a new learning curve.

At my workplace, we don't discuss our dreams and/or our healings from the night before or the previous weekend or any time for that matter. Occasionally, we talk about our goals or even dreams/plans we had when younger. Those momentary references to personal insights are rare. We exhibit a level of uncomfortability with that kind of sharing.

I cherish the times I'm with friends who share a common language of feelings, dreams and healings.  Those are the moments, the times when I feel truly seen, known and appreciated. It is a learning curve to continue the conversation into the mundane pieces of my life and allowing for the stares and the stammers and the misunderstandings of those who don't know that facet of my life and my being.

I also believe I can talk about the football, baseball and soccer games and the lottery and the news with all of those people as well. Part of the learning curve for me is allowing, even encouraging, the wide variety of expressions to come through. Then my life is full, enriched and enriching.

Do you have people to discuss your dreams with? and your healings? Do you have, take or make the opportunity to focus on those parts of your life? What is your learning curve?