Loving
Conversation
“Conversation
is the vehicle for change. We test our ideas. We hear our own voice
in concert with another. And inside those pauses of listening, we
approach new territories of thought. A good argument, call it a
discussion, frees us.”
Terry
Tempest Williams (When Women Were Birds)
Have
you ever had a conversation that changed your life? I have. In fact,
I've had several. One was in high school with my English teacher,
Mrs. Kidd, who was the first person to tell me I had a good brain. Another occurred in graduate school when my adviser told me I was “a
depressive.” I had no idea that I carried a low level of depression
all the time, but he saw it. Sometimes, other people see what we do
not, and that is especially true when it comes to information about
ourselves.
Recently, I
had a conversation on this subject with a friend. He spoke
of all the roadblocks he put in the way of his personal truth
sneaking into awareness: never being in silence, even sleeping in
headphones so the music drowned out the voices in his head. He
couldn't allow himself to hear replayed conversations with parents
and friends, fearing that what they told him about himself might be
true. Self-acceptance is difficult when you are different from the
people you love the most. I appreciated that young man's courage.
We
talk so much, we tend to forget that words have power; that they are
energetic emissions. Words can wound or they can support. If we have
enough trust capital built up with another person, we can more easily
say and hear difficult information. But if not, we can say things
carelessly that will leave scars for a lifetime.
Conversation,
when it is good, is a bonding, trust building, learning experience.
It is also among the most intimate of acts. We increase our “free
zone” when we engage in meaningful conversation with another human
being. They learn something they didn't know about us and we about
them, thus increasing our feelings of connection. As we gain trust,
we reveal more, and pretty soon, we have the foundations of real
relationship.
There
is hardly anything better, in my world view, than good conversation.
I hope you have an opportunity today to go on that voyage of
discovery with another. Choose your words carefully and release them
with love.
In
the spirit,
Jane
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