lara simmons

"To listen well, we must attend both to the words and the silence between the words."  --William Issacs in "A Matter of Spirit," the  Intercommunity Peace and Justice Center  quarterly newsletter Listening well is not easy, but it is a skill that can be developed with a willingness to learn and some practice. One of the techniques crucial to being a good listener is shutting the hell up. Also known as pausing. It is easy to get on a roll during a conversation and forget to pause and listen to the other person. This can be especially hard after asking a question. My husband takes a lot longer to answer a question than I do and it can sometimes be excruciating to wait (and wait....and wait....and wait....) for his answer. But it is important to do so. If you think you may need practice, watch the video above and listen for the birdsong. If it is hard for you to wait to hear it, pausing during conversations with others may be an important skill for you to ...

The theme this week follows  last week's almost magically. Listening is an important part of any good relationship and it is not an easy skill. It is hard to listen without judgement, to listen without interrupting, to listen without jumping in to share or solve. To just listen. I encourage you to try it this week and hope the quotations I have chosen will inspire you to listen well: "To listen well, we must attend both to the words and the silence between the words."  --William Issacs in "A Matter of Spirit," the  Intercommunity Peace and Justice Center  quarterly newsletter "The first duty of love is to listen." -- Paul Tillich "Listen to those who open a path to you; listen and don't say a word." -- RUMI "O Great Spirit help me always to speak the truth quietly, to listen with an open mind when others speak and to remember the peace that may be found in silence." -- Cherokee prayer "...[Y]our l...

"Opening to the world begins to benefit ourselves and others simultaneously. The more we relate with others, the more quickly we discover where we’re blocked. Seeing this is helpful, but it’s also painful. Sometimes we use it as ammunition against ourselves: we aren’t kind, we aren’t honest, we aren’t brave, and we might as well give up right now. But when we apply the instruction to be soft and nonjudgmental to whatever we see at this very moment, the embarrassing reflection in the mirror becomes our friend. We soften further and lighten up more, because we know it’s the only way we can continue to work with others and be of any benefit in the world. This is the beginning of growing up." -- Pema Chodron "Fucked up people will try to tell you otherwise, but boundaries have nothing to do with whether you love someone or not. They are not judgments, punishments, or betrayals. They are a purely peaceable thing: the basic principles you identify for yourself that define t...

"The beginning of love is to let those we love be perfectly themselves, and not twist them to fit our own image. Otherwise we love only the reflection of ourselves we find in them." -- Thomas 

"If you can't think something nice, don't think anything at all." --My take on Thumper's Law , " If you can't say something nice, don't say nothing at all." I am reading Anne Lamott again and her books always make we want to weep at the hopelessness of our situation and at the same time inspire me to be better in the face of all this hopelessness. It is a fine line she walks between utter despair and blissful transcendence and I always enjoy the ride. One thing I am noticing this time is that she always says at least three good things about the people she loves when she describes them in her books. Here are some examples from the book I am currently reading ( Some Assembly Required: A Journal of My Son's First Son ): "Jax was the loveliest baby boy I'd ever seen....gorgeous as God or a crescent moon, with huge black eyes..." "[Trudy] is down-to-earth, outgoing and constantly doing something useful." "...

"People want you to be happy. Don't keep serving them your pain." --Rumi

"I want to thank my wife...for working on our marriage, for ten Christamses. It is work, but it's the best kind of work. There's no one I'd rather work with." -- Ben Affleck in his Best Picture acceptance speech for Argo One of the best Oscar acceptance speeches EVER.