A Different Kind of Listening
I began praying for discernment before I knew what the word meant.
Each night before sleep, I would turn out the light, tuck the covers under my chin, and taste the word on my tongue, “discernment.”
Please grant me discernment. Allow me to see what can stay and what wants to go. I will admit I wasn’t even sure to whom I was praying, but still I was compelled to ask, as if filling an empty cup, “Discernment, please.”
Day after month after year, I prayed that request: “discernment.”
And day after month after year, I listened.
And every so often, if I allowed my life to become quiet enough, at the edge between asleep and awake, a message would drift across my awareness:
More water
Drop sugar
Pause and see
No trespassing
Add movement
While these nudges may seem a bit cryptic as you read them now, they dropped into my consciousness with resounding clarity. Some part of me knew what I needed, so I prayed earnestly and listened…
It’s a very different kind of listening, this “tuning in.” It invites us to the edges of our knowing and stirs wisdom from the depths of our soul, so different than our thinking minds could fathom.
From feeling and seeing what I did not want, I began discerning what I did. And ever-so-gradually and imperceptibly, millisecond by micro-move, the essence of my life is distilling itself down to the sweet stuff, thanks to the gift of discernment.
Stay tuned for more of the sweet stuff…and join me in the New Year if you’d like to hear what’s at the edges of your own knowing.
I’ll meet you there, in a Space of Allowing.
With love and a lotta listening,
Nancy
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