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Posts tagged ‘mindfulness’

How to Choose the Best Meditation for You

AHMbackcover copyIf meditation is so good for us, why can it feel so hard to get started?

You’ve most likely seen reports listing many benefits from meditation, recently have been scientifically proven to produce long-lasting improvements in mental cognition, problem-solving, and even increases in brain cell growth after just a few weeks of meditating for 20 minutes a day. Scientific interest in this topic has been steadily growing with no slow-down in sight; Google scholar lists over 5,000 studies citing benefits of meditation that have been published in the first seven months of 2015.

Some of the advantages of meditation include: reduction of stress which in turn boosts the immune system, energy levels, and sense of wellbeing and equanimity; growth of grey cells in the brain and the hippocampus, contributing to better cognitive functioning and problem solving; lengthened telomeres, contributing to greater longevity and overall health.

In addition to these and hundreds of more proven benefits of meditation, people who meditate also find themselves surrounded with happy coincidences and delightful synchronicity. Things just seem to go their way.

So how can we get started meditating, when it’s something we’ve never done before?

 

Overcome Inner Resistance

As in all matters of health and wellbeing, we can be our own best friends and supporters on a path to improvement, or we can be self-saboteurs. Since meditation is turning out to be as important to good health as sleep, diet, and exercise, it’s important to find ways to ensure we make time for it in our daily lives. And just like choosing diet and exercise programs that work best for you, a meditation program will be most rewarding and effective when it’s well-suited to your individual strengths, style, and preferences. And when it’s fun!

I’ve found that one of the best ways for me to stick with my commitment to daily meditation is to practice the types of meditation I most enjoy. There are so many types of meditation to choose from–yet I know I’ll actually do the ones that feel just right for me, because I feel like they’re actually fun! This tactic is a bit like “whistling while you work,” but it’s actually even better than that, because when I choose types of meditation I like to do, meditation isn’t a bit like work!

 

Create Your Favorite Meditations

Here’s a quick way to zero in on finding the best meditation technique for you. First, choose a favorite physically relaxing activity, and then select a favorite mental focus. When you combine these two, you’ll have a customized meditation technique that is just right for you! To get started, honestly complete two sentences:  (1) One of my favorite ways to relax is _________________ and (2) I most enjoy focusing my attention on ___________________.

It’s helpful to take a look at examples of some different ways people might answer these questions, to give you an idea of how to construct personalized meditations, starting with the idea of taking a look at your favorite way to relax. And yes, simply doing whatever activity you find most relaxing can count as a form of meditation!

(1) One of my favorite ways to relax is to:

Listen to music
Work in the garden
Close my eyes and breathe deeply
Watch clouds go by
Take a hot bath
Go for a walk

People who enjoy walking can develop their own form of walking meditation. Some people count their breaths as they walk, others simply let go of their worries with each deep breath, and still others observe their thoughts go by without pursuing them. What sort of mental focus appeals to you?

Cynthia Sue LarsonCynthia Sue Larson using two wire coat hangers to dowse energy fields

(2) I most enjoy focusing my attention on:

Letting go of all thoughts
Breathing
Observing the patterns of thoughts
Feeling energy flowing through my body

Whatever mental focus most appeals to you is the one to try. Some people prefer to mull over various thoughts of the day, while others find a sense of nirvana in getting to a place of inner harmonious peace in which thoughts and feelings are cleared away as they show up. Some people feel relaxed by paying attention to bringing awareness to physical activities such as breathing, and take care to breathe more slowly and deeply to the lower abdomen. If you don’t know what you prefer, then try out various ways to focus your attention until you find one that feels best to you. 

This is really all there is to it… just combine one of your most relaxing activities with one of your most relaxing mental focuses, and you are meditating! You can even come up with a few favorite meditations, such as one that works best when first awakening, another one to do while showering or brushing your teeth, and yet another to do while taking a walk. 

If you try one meditation and find you don’t like it, then try another one. You can find something you like, so don’t give up!

 

Listen to Recorded Meditations

“Aura

Could you use a little extra help getting started with meditation? Or perhaps you could benefit from meditation assistance on days that are more challenging. Some people find it’s easiest and most enjoyable to meditate with assistance from recorded meditations. My Aura Healing Meditations are available as an autographed CD through the RealityShifters website, as MP3 audio files, and tracks on iTunes and Amazon, and can be played to create a positive healing environment any time you wish to reduce stress, enhance your energy field, improve your health, and increase your effectiveness.

 

You can watch the video edition of this post on YouTube at: http://youtu.be/idpVLQuQnBk

___________________________
QuantumJumps300x150adCynthia Sue Larson is the best-selling author of six books, including Quantum Jumps. Cynthia has a degree in Physics from UC Berkeley, and discusses consciousness and quantum physics on numerous shows including the History Channel, Coast to Coast AM, the BBC and One World with Deepak Chopra. You can subscribe to Cynthia’s free monthly ezine at: http://www.RealityShifters.com
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Shift the World with Deep Listening

Cynthia Sue Larson

Cynthia Sue Larson

Imagine what it would feel like if everyone you spoke to, and everyone you met listened deeply to all you had to say, with obvious empathy and without once interrupting or interjecting their own thoughts or feelings. How does it feel to envision a world in which everyone listens respectfully to everyone else? Can you picture your family, neighborhood, and community all listening to one another deeply and fully?

Heart-centered, open-minded listening provides us with the power to change the world, one conversation at a time. When our personal truth is honored, we feel an enhanced sense of respect, connection, and trust with those who listen deeply to all we have to share. We feel kinder, gentler, and more courageous when we are honored for speaking our truth. Barriers between people of wildly disparate backgrounds crumble and fall, as a sense of shared oneness permeates relationships based on deep listening.

Deep listening allows people to shift between parallel worlds of possibility, moving from communications based in mistrust and doubt, to relationships founded on respect and trust. Deep listening has the power to transform our lives by inviting us to reconsider all manner of assumptions, prejudices, and beliefs. Rather than pushing ideas forward of what we think best and right, we can experience exceptional results by listening to and addressing ideas that are very different from ours. Deep listening is a state of mindfulness we enter humbly, by emptying our mental cup of whatever point we are trying to prove, and whatever beliefs we fear may be threatened. Deep listening requires a courageous leap of faith, as all preconceived notions are set aside in order to give one’s full attention to what is right here, right now.

sacredshift.0982205473The basic steps involved in mastering the art of deep listening can be taught and learned. They involve providing speaker and listener with a time and place to converse, and providing steps for the listener to follow that serve to inspire confidence, trust, and openness from the speaker. Within such a framework, listening becomes an active process, in which the listener demonstrates respect for the speaker as a person, and respect for what the speaker focuses on. The art of paying such rapt attention to a speaker may seem unusual, yet people everywhere recognize listeners who show such uncommon levels of interest and respect.

I had an extraordinary experience with the power of my deep listening to transform the world when I was involved in a grass-roots local political campaign to rebuild a Berkeley neighborhood elementary school in the early 1990s. The school site council I led faced overwhelming opposition from the superintendent and the school board members. Some of us felt discouraged because we were completely disregarded by those with the power to influence change. Rather than more loudly proclaim our point of view, I actively sought out and listened deeply to all aspects of each school site council member’s concerns. Through listening deeply to what they had to say, we addressed their concerns one at a time, slowly but surely changing the school board votes from “no” to “yes” for our proposal. I experienced amazing intuitive guidance during that time, which further revealed the power of listening as the ultimate way to influence positive change in the world. Before one evening’s school board meeting, I was about to drive my car out of my driveway, when an overwhelming impulse to stop the car and pick one of the roses on my rose bush became too tempting to ignore. I carried that salmon-colored rose with me into the large room where the school board meeting was to be conducted that evening, and followed another powerful impulse to place the rose on the table of a school board member who’d been on the fence regarding our proposal. I wrote a note that simply said, “Please vote according to your conscience,” which I left with the rose. When the doors to the closed chambers opened, and the school board members entered the room, I was stunned to see the woman I’d left the note for embrace the rose lovingly in her hands for the entire meeting… a rose whose color exactly matched the two piece suit she was wearing!

One of the most radical, powerful, effective actions we can take in any situation is to choose to listen deeply. Deep listening is akin to the eastern concept of Yin, whose complement is the active Yang. We are blessed to live in a highly interactive universe, full of energetic responses to our every thought, feeling, and action. While we often become preoccupied with getting things done by projecting our thoughts, feelings and actions, we can lose our balance if we forget to be as receptive as we are active. Attaining a state of optimal receptivity for deep listening requires that we achieve a disciplined state of mindfulness in which we remain alert, open-hearted, and open-minded. Such disciplined mindfulness can be attained by a variety of methods, including athletes refer to as being “in the zone,” what psychologists call “active listening,” what Quakers call, “a clearness committee,” and what physicists and linguists call, “Bohmian dialogue.”

Get In the Zone

Before delving into relationships we have with others, we can begin the art of deep listening by mastering the fine art of listening to ourselves – by learning a more disciplined way to hear our own self-talk. Some of the top experts in this field of expertise are athletes, who must learn to master mind-body clarity and discipline in order to succeed. Athletes refer to the optimal state of mind-body clarity as being “in the zone” – a rarefied state of consciousness in which performance is exceptional and consistent, automatic and flowing. Mental conditioning trainers such as Trevor Moawad explain that the average person engages in self-talk at a rate of 300 to 1,000 words a minute, and this self-talk can range from being phenomenally empowering to extremely self-critical and self-destructive. Athletes learn that the way they handle their self-talk makes a tremendous difference in their performance, particularly at times when things don’t go according to plan. Good mental conditioning allows athletes to recognize when their self-talk is negative, positive, or escapist, and to manage thought processes accordingly. Rather than attempting to eradicate negative self-talk, athletes learn ways to rapidly switch mental gears any time negative thoughts arise, either to positive self-talk, or by asking themselves how a mentor or role model might handle a particular setback or challenge. Athletes show us that optimal human performance is achieved when we feel relaxed, alert, confident and strong… in a state of mind-body harmony that allows us to experience seemingly magical states of synchronized balance.

Master Active Listening

Thomas Gordon coined the term “active listening” in the 1970’s to describe the importance of paying full attention when hearing others speak. The three main components of active listening are: comprehending, retaining, and responding. While the individual steps involved in active listening seem simple and straightforward, they can be challenging when conversations are emotionally charged, competitive, or full of conflict. At such times, additional tools in the active listening tool belt come in especially handy, such as the four-step Non-Violent Communications process (also known as Compassionate Communication) developed by Marshall Rosenberg in the 1960’s which consists of conveying one’s observation, feelings, needs, and request. Active listening provides people with ways to talk to almost anyone about just about anything, while empowering both listener and speaker in the process. Rather than feeling blamed or judged, people can begin to recognize areas of shared interest and connection, as well as begin to develop a better sense of empathy for what others are feeling, and what they need. Learning and utilizing active listening skills is one of the best ways to ‘be the change you wish to see in the world,’ teaching others by example how to compassionately respect and honor the true feelings and needs of others in our lives.

Create A Clearness Committee

In the 1660’s, the Quakers created a spiritual process guided by simple rules, including an understanding that what transpires within dialogue be treated confidentially, and not shared with anyone afterward. A clearness committee is initiated by a focus person, who selects committee members from the most diverse variety of backgrounds, experiences, ages, and viewpoints possible. The focus person writes about the past, present and future aspects of area of concern, and shares this with committee members prior to meeting. When the group convenes, committee members are forbidden from speaking to the focus person in any way other than asking honest, open questions, such as, “Did you ever feel like this before?” “Who are you trying to please?” or “How will you change?” Committee members are encouraged to remain totally attentive, and to ask brief questions inspired by intuition. The focus person responds to questions as they are asked, taking the conversation deeper and deeper… with the understanding that the focus person is in control of the process, with the power to not answer questions. Clearness committees are expected to help individuals become better focused on the true nature of their questions and concerns, in ways that provide them with a deeper, fuller sense of themselves in relationship to their area of focus.

Experience Bohmian Dialogue

Physicist David Bohm’s provided a significant contribution to a better understanding of quantum physics through a theory that described the universe of having an enfolded, or implicate, order in which space and time are no longer the primary factors nor foundation by which all of reality exists and interacts. Bohm proposed that our belief in so-called laws of space and time arise from our experience of an explicate order… one that arises from a unifying undivided whole. Intrigued by the striking similarity between Bohm’s worldview and that of the Blackfoot and other indigenous tribes, Leroy Little Bear approached physicist David Bohm and initiated the first “Language of Spirit” dialogue with scientists, linguists, and indigenous scholars and elders in 1992. The Bohmian-inspired Language of Spirit dialogues encourage participants to sense underlying oneness while consciously suspending self-defensiveness, and to actively engage in experiencing new perceptions through listening deeply. These annual dialogues are mediated by an indigenous elder, and continue for several days. One person at a time speaks when feeling inspired, and others listen, in a talking circle dialogue format, until the speaker says everything he or she feels strongly inspired to share.

The deep listening I’ve experienced has affected me in ways that defy simple explanation, leaving me with a keen sense of being better and more completely attuned to everyone and everything around me. I can feel my heart more fully open, and I can sense stronger connections between my heart and others. I’ve witnessed people befriend those whose experiences and worldviews were vastly different, and seen emotional dams burst open and healing tears flow forth. I’ve watched people bridge rifts that seemed impossibly deep and wide, and develop trust and respect for those they’d previously feared and mistrusted.

When we improve our ability to listen deeply, we see profound benefits to our civilization and world that we could not have predicted nor foreseen. Deep listening opens the doors to our hearts, and enables us to feel an expanded sense of belonging and connectedness with friends, family, colleagues, neighbors and strangers… who might not stay strangers very long.

This article is one of three chapters written by Cynthia Sue Larson in Sacred Shift: You Are the World

You can watch me discuss this topic on my YouTube video, Shift the World with Deep Listening... and please feel free to comment with your thoughts and ideas here on this blog and in the comments under the video. I’d love to know how you feel!

Love always,
Cynthia Sue Larson
email Cynthia at cynthia@realityshifters.com

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Karate, Survival and Intuition

“The ultimate aim of karate lies not in victory nor defeat, but in the perfection of the character of its participants.” – Gichin Funikoshi

Have you ever wondered how well you’d be able to survive a natural disaster… or human-assisted disasters such as war, unemployment or social strife? I read truly amazing biographical books this month about two wise men who survived and even thrived in extremely harsh situations, and who taught others to do the same. These biographies moved me deeply, as I contemplated the phenomenal skills we can learn that can assist us in successfully handling almost any environment or challenge.

Tom Brown’s book, Grandfather,” describes life experiences of the author’s indigenous mentor, Stalking Wolf, who taught him tracking and survival skills for most every environment, climate, and weather conditions. At a time when most indigenous peoples in the United States of America were losing access to their native lands, traditions, language, and ways of life, some highly intuitive individuals, such as Tom Brown’s “grandfather” lived independently in nature. Tom Brown describes how Stalking Wolf lived in accordance with native traditional ways that respect all plants, animals, Earth, water and air, and he sought those interested in learning how to live in harmony with natural surroundings as caretakers for the Earth. Stalking Wolf’s lengthy meditations in nature imbued him with deep intrinsic knowledge of how to flourish in the driest deserts, the coldest mountain tops, and the wettest forests. I love the way Tom Brown describes how Stalking Wolf first appeared in his life, shocking young Tom by quickly finding the very best fossil specimen without even seeming to search… and his explanation that when one learns to listen to the rocks, such things are easy. “Grandfather” is a riveting book for anyone intrigued by intuition, survival skills, and spirituality that delves into the keys to staying alive in life-or-death situations being based primarily on one’s ability to tune in to the realm of energy and knowledge ever-present, yet seldom seen. My favorite thing about “Grandfather” is the subtle yet profound changes I feel inside me after having read this book, as each story rests gently inside me, teaching me profound lessons in patience, listening, humility, generosity, discipline, respect, compassion, and empathy. I felt at several points that I was hearing Stalking Wolf’s story directly, and then entering it to feel the biting winter cold of a mountain blizzard, or the unforgivingly scalding desert heat. I was transfixed by each life-or-death challenge as it arose, and delighted each time Stalking Wolf listened closely to find exactly what he needed at each point. I feel tremendously grateful to Stalking Wolf and Tom Brown for sharing these stories, and find myself wishing that all children could hear them, and feel amazed, inspired, and uplifted by those who knew and know how to live in the world of nature and feel a sense of truly being home.

 

Gichin Funikoshi’s, Karate-Do: My Way of Life provides insights from “the father of karate,” who was weak and sickly from birth, yet thrived by taking karate lessons at a time when karate was illegal and banned by the government in Japan. Funakoshi studied, practiced, and taught karate into his 90’s, inspiring students around the world through his personal example of retaining mental, physical and emotional health despite living through tremendously challenging times and circumstances. Funakoshi lived through times of poverty, and was separated from his wife for many years during the second World War.  What makes Funakoshi’s memoir so exceptional is the way Funakoshi’s gentlemanly demeanor comes through between the written words. Each of Funakoshi’s short stories weaves together with the rest in harmonious fashion, sharing insights from a wide variety of different aspects of his life that are unified by his underlying fundamental character, focus, and intent. Each short story serves a purpose of both moving forward with the story of Funakoshi’s life, and illustrating key principles he lived by and taught to the students he trained. It’s clear that by practicing karate with this frame of mind, one gains mindfulness in all aspects of life, and Funakoshi clearly recognizes the value of teaching through examples and real life experience. I recommend “Karate-Do” highly to students of all forms of martial and combative empty hands arts, as well as readers fascinated by Japanese history, and people interested in improving the overall quality of their lives.

What I love so much about both “Grandfather” and “Karate-Do: My Way of Life” is how two such outwardly dissimilar men survived amazing hardships, with both men crediting their success in large part to inner character qualities of living ethically, and remaining humble. This is marvelous news for each and every one of us facing seemingly insurmountable challenges — we truly can prevail, and do so by taking a path that inspires, uplifts, motivates, and helps others.

I share some thoughts and feelings about karate, survival, and intuition in this video:

There is much we can learn from our elders when they are willing to share their wisdom through stories about some of the more extraordinary things they have experienced. When we listen closely, we can gain a sense of how important they feel qualities of inner character to be. Some attributes of inner character that make a big difference in our ability to survive and thrive through all sorts of challenges include such things as: focus, dedication, compassion, mindfulness, ethical action, and humility… and these are things that each and every one of us can choose to develop.

Wishing you success in finding out just how good your life can get, with lots of love,
Cynthia Sue Larson
email Cynthia at cynthia@realityshifters.com

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How to Change the Past

Cynthia Sue Larson

Cynthia Sue Larson

The future can only effect the present if there is room to write its influence off as a mistake.” – Yakir Aharonov

Most of us have at one point or another in our lives wished that there was something in the past we could change… yet most of us have been raised by adults who assured us that it’s not possible to change the past. Such beliefs are summed up beautifully  in the Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám,

“The moving finger writes, and having writ, moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line, Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it.”

People who’ve experienced reality shifts are much more open to considering the possibility that the future and present can change the past, and that there’s some credence to physicist John Cramer’s Transactional Interpretation of quantum physics, and the notion of a “handshake” between future and the past that allows for the kind of symmetry in time we expect in space. Considering that space-time is a continuum, and physics fully allows for time-forward and time-reversed causality, a whole new world of possibility begins to open up.

A point worth contemplating is that in fact, quantum physics forbids a single history. This deceptively modest statement belies the enormity of its impact, which is that we never have just one agreed-upon history. We tend to not be aware of multiple histories, nor do we often accept the possibility of their existence… yet when we think about how it would feel to us if we were influenced by the future, we’d realize that we could experience Déjà Vu, future memory, precognition, premonitions, intuitive hunches, synchronicities, and exceptional situational awareness… as well as spontaneous remissions from injury and disease.

I got a wonderful email from a reader this month, who asked a practical question about changing the past:

QUESTION:

Hello Cynthia
I am focusing on communicating a message to myself in the past using meditation and the mind techniques from your eBook and other sources, to alter a  choice that I regret. My regret is moving home and I wish to alter that decision. My work is about raising my vibration and activating my Pineal Grand in an effort to achieve this. I would appreciate any advice from you.

Here is my response:

ANSWER:

Thanks so much for writing to me regarding making a change to the past. Every situation is unique, yet there is something you can do to give yourself the best shot at experiencing a changed past… and that is to meditate daily to raise your energy & stay grounded.

Meditation is actually the most important thing you can do. Your goal in meditation is to attain a state of mindfulness in which you feel detached from any particular outcome, with a sense of acceptance of yourself and the universe.

I recommend that you keep an open mind considering the past — especially with regard to any upsetting details — and stay focused on what you are grateful for.

View time as every bit as balanced as all of space, with a sense of being able to maintain a sense of hope for the past as well as the future. We are hopeful for the past when we feel gratitude and appreciation.

If you haven’t yet seen the slides from my talk on “Listening to Future Selves, Reviewing Our Pasts,” you can download the slideshow of my talk at:

http://www.seedgraduateinstitute.org/pressrelease/csl.pdf

I wish you all the best, and hope this helps!

I share some additional thoughts and feelings about why we might want to change the past, and how we might go about it in this video:

I’d love to hear your comments and questions about what you’d most like to change from your past… and any experiences you’ve had with retrocausality!

Love always,
Cynthia Sue Larson
email Cynthia at cynthia@realityshifters.com

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Time Traveler Reality Shift

Cynthia Sue Larson

 

Our heirs, whatever or whoever they may be, will explore space and time to degrees we cannot currently fathom. They will create new melodies in the music of time. There are infinite harmonies to be explored.“- Clifford Pickover

I’ve been fortunate to have had numerous unusual experiences involving time in my life. One of the most extraordinary occurred on a seemingly ordinary day in August 1998.

My daughter and I were waiting for our friend to visit us at our home, and the front door of the house was open as my daughter saw him arrive, pulling into the driveway. I could hear the sound of a car’s tires crunching on loose gravel in our asphalt driveway, and I heard my daughter call his name out to me, shouting that he was here. A few minutes passed, and I again heard the sound of a car’s tires crunching across gravel in the driveway, and my daughter’s voice yelling, “WAIT! Why are you going?!”

My daughter later told me he said something to her that she couldn’t quite hear, and then drove away. From where I was inside our house, I clearly hard a car pull into the driveway, and drive away a few minutes later as my daughter called out.

About ten minutes later, our friend returned in a completely different car, with his two children.

Now that our friend had arrived at our house (this time with his children) and appeared able to stay for a while, my daughter came to talk to me. I could see that she was deeply troubled by something, so I asked her what was wrong. She asked me, “Why did he drive away?”  I replied that I had no idea. Perhaps there had been some problem with his children, and he’d decided to talk with them privately. My daughter instantly commented, “But the kids weren’t even in the car the first time… and it was a different car.”

I brought my daughter to talk to my friend about this, and he was quite intrigued. He explained, “I once drove here by myself in the other car. I had been wishing to see you and wishing I could be here when you were here… especially your daughter, and her implacable, unbeatable, ungovernable love. She goes right to my heart.”

My daughter told our friend he’d said something to her she couldn’t quite understand as he spoke directly to her, as if he could see her… but he drove away anyway. Our friend told us that he’d sensed someone’s presence as he was thinking of my daughter, and had spoken aloud his wish to see us when we were home. My daughter said that even though she didn’t know what our friend had said, he had obviously been talking directly to her.

I feel extremely fortunate to have witnessed another kind of reality shift… a time travel variety of reality shift, in which our friend had somehow successfully held a conversation from the past into the future with my daughter, and that they had both sensed one another’s presence.

I am intrigued to note that while my daughter was able to clearly see our friend, he merely sensed my daughter’s presence. Perhaps this might be because my eight-year-old daughter’s beginner’s mind better allowed her to see what adults would tend to assume could not be happening. Due to our friend’s desire to be here and our desire to see him, he actually arrived from the past into our present (his future), and for a brief time they held a conversation together.

I share some thoughts and feelings about this time travel reality shift in this video:

As people increasingly experience more reality shifts, thanks to more people meditating and following spiritual paths than ever before, time travel shifts such as this one may become commonplace.

Love always,
Cynthia Sue Larson
email Cynthia at cynthia@realityshifters.com

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Truth, Observation, Perception, Listening and Dialogue

Cynthia Sue Larson

Cynthia Sue Larson

 

“Truth only reveals itself when one gives up all preconceived ideas.”- Shoseki

One of the most transformational experiences in my life has been attending SEED Graduate Institute‘s Language of Spirit Conferences with indigenous elders and scholars, scientists, and linguists.

I felt something amazing happen as I  listened deeply to dialogue driven not by personal agendas, points of view or platforms… but instead purely by inspiration flowing through the people gathered there. Most of one’s time at this conference is spent listening, and a beautiful thing happens as the dialogue begins with a sharing of individual views, and develops into heartfelt community. Beyond witnessing the magic of this harmonious coming together, the thing that amazed me most of all was noticing what happened inside myself while listening.

While listening, I noticed the way my mind so often attempted to sort ideas and concepts into “facts” it could label, identify, and categorize. Even though I remembered how facilitator Leroy Little Bear pointed out that the point of this dialogue has more to do with the process of dialogue than any particular statement, I often caught my mind crafting a “perfect response.” Within this deep struggle inside myself to simply listen… rather than strive to prepare a point I might later make, I eventually found balance, harmony, and peace. I learned to relax, and become one with the continuous flow of inspiration available to each and every one of us which graced me with gradually increasing awareness of the overall gestalt of truth, beauty, and awareness at this enlightening conference.

The practice of deep listening I experienced at the Language of Spirit dialogues is one that defies rational explanation, since dialogue participants and attendees experience something much more profound than simply a calming of the “monkey mind.”

I share some of my thoughts and feelings about truth, observation, perception, listening and dialogue — and how the Language of Spirit conference has changed my life for the better — in this video:

The improvement in deep listening I’ve experienced after attending Language of Spirit dialogues has helped me gain a “bigger picture” perspective, helped me see beyond limiting viewpoints, and inspired me to more deeply connect with everyone and everything I relate to in my life. Best of all, this expanded state of mindfulness stays with me long after the conference ends.

The topic at this year’s Language of Spirit conference, is “Science, Technology, and Creativity.” If you can attend this month’s dialogues in Albuquerque, New Mexico, I’d love to see you there!

Love always,
Cynthia Sue Larson
email Cynthia at cynthia@realityshifters.com

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