This holiday weekend is often filled with many opportunities to connect with friends and family members through conversations. As you engage in this back and forth dialog, I invite you to be mindful of the exchange, particularly in how you receive the information you hear.
So often someone says something which activates our own thought or experience and we cannot wait to share what just came up! Other times, we may internally disagree and dismiss what they are saying. While neither of these responses are bad, there may be a benefit in releasing a positive or negative response to invite in quiet neutrality to just absorb.
We often move so fast while talking back and forth, our brains listen to hear what we want to hear. Sometimes we even perceive the words from others to make it “work for us.” Subconsciously, we may be blocking our ability to absorb the words, wisdom, and experiences available to us.
As we interact, might we be able to invite a sense of intentional listening as we surrender our own agenda to allow absorption?
Having this open space to receive not only helps our brain calm down and learn, it can also make the person you are interacting with feel heard.
We owe it to ourselves, and our loved ones, to remove the noise to create space for absorption.
“Wisdom is the reward you get for a lifetime of listening when you’d have preferred to talk.”
- Doug Larson
Wishing you itty-bitty moments to absorb the intellectual, emotional, and spiritual nutrients you need to make your interactions this weekend memorable.
These plant pictures were taken in my Festus, Missouri neighborhood. Plants prove how important it is to have the ability to absorb in order to transform.
As an adult, I still think about how transformative it was to spend our Labor Day weekends in our boat on the Mississippi River in Wisconsin, Iowa, and Illinois. My memory of this:
