The Art of Listening
Listening is at the foundation of our work. It is an active and embodied response, a sensory pathway to one’s own inner and imaginal landscape. We must begin the practice of deep listening within our own life and through art-making.
Art as process allows one to experience a numinous place, outside of time and space. Yet we are human and the body is a barometer that informs and guides us. That guidance will be perceived in the thinking mind as positive, negative or somewhere in between. The guidance understood through the body is felt as reactive or responsive.
The responsive body will offer insight through emotion and sensation that is neutral, thoughtful or holds curiosity. The reactive body will offer information through pain, discomfort and hyper alert flight or fight. This is a reptilian feature of the brain aimed to provide safety. Our body will send us alerts, signals of “danger zones” and when conscious this is the place where we begin to discern and listen more deeply to messages that are not what they seem.
The body holds memories and perceptions of wounding and healing that are commonly buried underneath reactive cues. Listening to the body’s messages and clues allows one to uncover areas that are ready and waiting to be seen and heard.
The listening place offers an invitation to reconnect to what the body knows is possible. Rather than connecting to places where wounding is held and memories pull one back into trauma, the listening place attunes to readiness for healing. Awareness is something that grows in intensity when given space to be heard.
As a Creative Depth Coach or JourneyCircles™ Facilitator, listening is a bridge to the client’s experience and their own journey of healing. Begin deepening your ability to listen by practicing it in your own life and art-making.