Monday, January 2, 2012

Listening in for the New Year

Happy New Year Friends!

Something good is going to happen today.   I'm not sure what that is yet, but saying it now will help me to notice when it happens later on.


As soon as the last gift was unwrapped this Christmas and I saw a picture of myself looking rather plump in my chair, and still at this moment, I'm battling a severe case of Irritable Jenny Syndrome. 

This week I have felt the pangs of holiday let-down and it's partner ennui.
I went to the gym and doubled my work outs and avoided most of the baked goods that I'd worked on before Christmas day.  I was cranky and said things that weren't nice. 

I wondered if it would have been better to travel to see extended family no matter the cost.  Perhaps it was better this way...they were spared!

Scrooge and Grinch and the worst of me took up residence in my heart and I've been fighting it for a week.

Something has gone wrong in my happiness wiring and so this New Year brings me to a humble state of mind.  While I was generally cheerful all season (that manic time between October 31 and December 25) somehow the momentum was lost.  And it's not a good place to be when blogging.

I want to write the good things, the happy things, the positive, lovely or beautiful things.

So today I'm going to include a passage from a writer whom I admire.  Her name is Brenda Ueland, a prolific American journalist who wrote hundreds of articles, essays and a newspaper column for the Minneapolis Times.  She's also known for her book If You Want to Write...which is on my list of books for this year.

In the following article taken from Strength to Your Sword Arm: Selected Writings, Ueland writes about listening in a way that I had never considered.  She claims that listening is a creative force.

On the fine art of listening, she says,

     "Think how the friends that really listen to us are the ones we move toward, and we want to sit in their radius as though it did us good, like ultraviolet rays.   This is the reason:  When we are listened to, it creates us, makes us unfold and expand.  Ideas actually begin to grow within us and come to life.  You know how if a person laughs at your jokes you become funnier and funnier, and if he does not, every tiny little joke in you weakens up and dies.  Well, that is the principle of it.  It makes people happy and free when they are listened to.  And if you are a listener, it is the secret of having a good time in society (because everybody around you becomes lively and interesting), of comforting people, of doing them good."

    "When we listen to people there is an alternating current, and this recharges us so that we never get tired of each other.  We are constantly being re-created."

     "Now this little creative fountain is in us all.  It is the spirit, or the intelligence, or the imagination---whatever you want to call it.  If you are very tired, strained, have no solitude, run too many errands, talk to too many people, drink too many cocktails, this little fountain is muddied over and covered up with a lot of debris.  The result is you stop living from the center, the creative fountain, and you live from the periphery, from externals.  That is, you go along on mere will power without any imagination.  It is when people really listen to us, with quiet fascinated attention, that the little fountain begins to work again, to accelerate in the most surprising way."

"I have a mystical notion about this.  I think it is only by expressing all that  is inside that purer and purer streams come.  It is so in writing.  You are taught in school to put down on paper only the bright things.  Wrong.  Pour out the dull things on paper too---you can tear them up afterward---for only then do the bright ones come.  If you hold back the dull things, you are certain to hold back what is clear and beautiful and true and lively."

"Now, how to listen?  It is harder than you think. I don't believe in critical listening, for that only puts a person in a straitjacket of hesitancy.  He begins to choose his words solemnly or primly.  His little inner fountain cannot spring.  Critical listeners dry you up.  But creative listeners are those who want you to be recklessly yourself, even at your very worst, even vituperative, bad-tempered.  They are laughing and just delighted with any manifestation of yourself, bad or good.  For true listeners know that if you are bad tempered it does not mean that you are always so.  They don't love you just when you are nice; they love all of you.  In order to learn to listen, here are some suggestions:  try to learn tranquility, to live in the present a part of the time every day.  Sometimes say to yourself: "Now. What is happening now?  This friend is talking.  I am quiet.  There is endless time.  I hear it, every word."

"The true listener is much more beloved, magnetic than the talker, and he is more effective, and learns more and does more good."



I wonder what Brenda would say about blogging...and all the "talking" of the internet.  I think she would recognize bloggers as some of the greatest listeners, because while we have these little, or big, boring or imaginative things to say, we continue to create new posts with energy especially when someone leaves a comment, no matter how brief.  It is the stamp that someone listened.  People who comment have the affect of allowing that life within us to spring forth in a creative way; it is wonderful to feel listened to.  So as I walk into a Monday morning on the second day of 2012, I'll be more aware of the many good things that are happening.  And embrace my need to listen.







5 comments:

  1. You will bounce back from this temporary state, Jenny. You can't not bounce back. The upswing in your mood begins right now as I tell you how much I appreciate this post. I'm a great believer in what I call "deep" listening. Listen as if you were a child again. Forget what you think you know and just listen. Turn off the sound of your mind's chatter and just listen. Don't worry about what you're going to say when the room falls silent. Silence is golden.

    Through deep listening I have come to appreciate new forms of music. I have come to know and love all ages and types of people around the world.

    Thank you for this, and happy new year to you, dear friend Jenny!

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  2. Thank you Shady! What a thoughtful comment. There is a gift in what you said about listening as if I were a child again...it was then that I could really hear bird song and tiny bugs and wind. And of course the lovely sound of my family while they worked in the kitchen or told a story. Happy New Year to you too!

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  3. I enjoyed your post very much today, Jenny, for its honesty. I suspect that there are many, many people feeling just as you feel at the moment. It's strange when it happens, because it's as if we can't stop ourselves. Can't stop ourselves from saying to our loved ones, things that we know we shouldn't be saying. I am fortunate in that, most times, I am in a good mood, but there are the odd occasions when I will pick an argument just for the sake of it. Then, afterwards, I feel bad and ask myself "why did I behave like that?". I really do hope that your mood will lift again very soon my friend. Don't forget, WE are all out here LISTENING to you through your blog posts. Brenda Ueland certainly has made some wise observations there. It is so true, because I know when people have laughed at something I've said, I really DO become funnier! Happy New Year to you and your little family, and let's hope that it will be a good one for all of us. Hugs.

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  4. I know full well what your post says because I know how I have felt when I try to share something with some one and in the middle of what I am saying they appear to be interested in something else around them. That disturbes me and tells me that I also need to listen. If we only changed one thing for 2012 and that being listening deeper it has to be a better year. Thanks for this eye opening post that has true meaning.
    Not to be a commercial but as for your comment about feeling a little too much when you look at yourself there is a product that is rapidly taking over around my neck of the woods called "Body by Vi". It is a shake you drink in place of two meals and I have heard many friends say they have lost anywhere from 15 to 30 lbs and the shakes are not only for weight management but better health. Linda and her daughter are using and enjoying it. Just a thought. Take care and know I am listening.
    Odie

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  5. This is really profound. I think the Christmas aftermath/ beginning of a new year is always a little more difficult to meet with unsullied purpose.

    I really enjoyed reading what you took the time to share about listening. One of my goals for myself this year is to listen more- talk less, so thank you!

    This is going to be a terrific 2012, and I hope and pray all the best of it for you, my friend!

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