Sometimes having someone to talk to, someone who can listen, instead of trying to solve your problems, is the best thing that can happen to you.
But there are things that are hard to share.
And then, if you are the one who is supposed to be there for others, no one expects you to have problems, or to be there for you. You are alone, and that is that.
All my life I have been the strong one, and no one ever expected me to need them to listen to me. So when I needed someone to listen, I had to pay them. It’s expensive. And now I don’t even trust anyone to just listen… so it’s tough.
Speaking, for me, is a kinesthetic experience, much like a blind person moving this way and that way… to find the way.
It’s much like one of the superheros, the blind one, Daredevil, who makes noise to know what’s in front of him… through his ears… through his skin. I speak like that. 1
You, mostly, speak from the mind, which means you don’t listen as you speak. You get no information coming back at you, no feedback… so speaking for you is a complete waste of time.
Even writing is a “getting feedback” experience. I listen as I write. I allow what comes back, the echo, to guide me. The echo from All-of-it. My words fall “onto” it, and come back altered, just like an echo.
One of the most important skills you can learn is learn to listen as you speak or write. Thinking doesn’t create an echo… And whether you know something is echoing you or not, all-of-it always echoes you… so another person is only there as an excuse, as a “trick” to make you speak coherently.
Because, if you watch yourself, when you think, there is no rhyme, no reason, no discipline to your thinking… it is just whirling thoughts, not you thinking. That is why you need someone to listen.
Even someone’s voice mail can work, if you trust that the person will listen to it. You need to speak coherently, formulate what you will say as you say it… you need to make some sense, not like when you are just thinking.
Writing these articles is a lot like talking to a voice mail… no immediate reaction, but the Universe, or All-of-it is responding… your reaction to what I write is secondary.
I didn’t write for a few days, and I could feel the price I am paying when I get no guidance.
I used to be like this all the time: in my head, no feedback, no guidance, no coherence, no clarity.
Journaling, when it works, is an excellent way to sort things out… but journaling as putting the same incoherent, drama queen stuff on paper, is worse than not journaling.
Journaling without listening for the echo is not better than just sitting there allowing the thoughts and emotions get the best of you.
Only journaling for clarity, for coherence, for guidance is worth doing… but, of course, it takes time to develop the capacity to listen while you “talk”.
So, how do you listen? Do you listen for words through your ears?
Well, I don’t really know how and where you should listen, I only know where I listen.
I stand in my Witness. My Witness, the real me, the one that doesn’t get involved, that doesn’t judge, that seemingly doesn’t care, is the only aspect of a human that doesn’t change depending on what’s happening.
The Witness is the same when you are happy, when you are sad, when you are in an accident, when you are dying, when you write, when you speak, when you listen, when you sleep.
The main goal is to step out of the mind, step out of the body, step out of the ego, what you want, what you need, what you like, what you don’t like, step outside of your experience, and step into the neutral position of the Witness.
Connecting to Source is only possible from that position… that is why so few people connect, and even the ones that connect, connect only for seconds.
The Witness is alert, never sleeps.
One of my favorite students connects easily, but then she goes into lala land… no alertness, no awareness… that is NOT being connected, that is the illusion of being connected.
Another one of my favorite students connects well, but then identifies herself with her bodily sensations, with the colors and mist she sees… i.e. she leaves the Witness position… i.e. she disconnects from Source.
Because of my training as a mime (pantomime) in my childhood, I have had a very good positional awareness: the Witness positions is as physical as actually stepping backwards, away from the hubbub, the storm, the emotions, the thoughts, the other, and watch it from the outside.
I would call it the “real” bilocation: you see, you hear, you feel, but you are not what you see, you are not what you hear, you are not what you feel, and you are not your thoughts, not your history, not your drama.
This is the first step to accomplish. To live in that Witness position is the goal, not just an occasional visit.
Once you get good at that, you will also experience going higher on the vertical: the Witness position is ON the vertical Self.
The higher you climb, the wider cone of vision you have. In a wider cone of vision past and future disappear as such, and there is only what you see… past, present, future as one.
Coming from nothing, going to nothing.
And nothing is beautiful. Nothing carries in itself everything.
The reason happiness is the result, because you move, fully aware, fully conscious, to everything/nothing.
Your visual experiences are NOT that. Your feelings are NOT that.
In everything-nothing you see everything-nothing from the outside… you are not even that.
You are always the never changing, rock solid Witness.
In the beginning I wanted to share with you how miserably I feel… and through writing, through the guidance, I am now observing the misery, but it is not mine, it is not me.
Thank you for being there.
PS: in another article I will explore how to recognize if you are speaking/writing from the mind… stay tuned.
Hey, Elide. you are describing an experience of perfect echo… very rare. But yes, you actually hear, not just what you said, but who you are being, what you are hiding… that’s why it’s so valuable, that’s why it’s a guidance. You can hear your shadow… so you can catch it.
The second part, being a third person in the room, instead of talking through your forehead, is how life is lived, when you live out of your Witness…
Sophie, I re-read this and I think I understand… This is like those rare (in my case!) experiences where you are talking to someone and can actually hear your voice clearly in the room and what you are saying. So you hear everything exactly like you are saying it and listening to it and then listening to the other person reply too. It’s like somehow being a third person in the room. That is, instead of talking through my forehead which is what I mainly get through life doing at the moment – terrible I know.
A, thank you for being you. And thank you for reading until you get it…
Sophie, this is so beautiful! Had to read your article several times to see it and absorb it so I can live it. I will speak, write, listen not to be superior, not because I know, not because I can but because I want to hear an echo, an echo that can guide me. Standing in the never changing, rock solid Witness. It’s something to behold… This article made me aware and conscious of
who is speaking
who is listening
what is speaking
what is listening
Thank you Sophie.
K, it is not the same, but it may have the same effect.
When you say “it is what it is” you are still in the middle of it, you are still thinking of a solution, problems, issues… as you say.
When you stand in Witness you have no issues. Because you are the Witness, who can have no problems or issues. You may see solutions to problems, but they are not your problems, they are issues of the life you are observing, not yours.
That is a big difference: the desire to solve a problem is not there, the trepidation, the effort, the agenda.
And yet, lives get solved…
I haven’t had a problem before the mite issues came up. Since then I go in and out of the Witness position, and it takes work to get back there, because the irritation is so strong.
Yet, I managed to disown the problem a large percentage of the time, and although it is like a mathematical problem to work on, it is not solving MY problem, it is solving a problem… and I can find pleasure in experimenting etc.
Writing today’s article returned me to sanity and to the Witness position, thank heavens.
Is what you describe, standing in your Witness, the same as accepting the present moment? I find that when I am able to accept whatever is happening at the present moment and think about it objectively from the position of “it is what it is” solutions to my problems/issues seem to come without effort. However, when I am using my own will to come up with an answer to a problem I become stuck in the problem–no solutions just more problems added.