Taking Time to Listen

Wow. After being away from the computer for so long, I don’t know where to begin. All this listening and learning I’ve been doing lately. Every day brings new ideas for things to write about. The problem is making the time to write them…and lately, with my messed up shoulder, having the ability to type.

My shoulder seems to be much better today. Thank you for all your prayers and well wishes. I was able to keep up with my email, even though I didn’t answer a lot of them. That would involve typing. But I do appreciate everyone who checked in on me and thank you for your concern. And I do appreciate my guest bloggers, who took up the slack for me while I was recuperating. And I appreciate knowing I can count on my friends to step into the breach should it happen again.

In the end, my solution came from listening—after a long period of not listening, apparently. So much so that I was ready to scream from the non-stop pain on Saturday. Relentless, it was. So I started going through my mind, trying to recall other times I’ve felt this way and how I got past it, and finally I settled on stretching.

Twelve years ago I spent nearly two years dealing with a frozen shoulder until I found a doctor who said, “I know what the problem is!” and within minutes he’d provided me with some stretching exercises that took care of the problem. This was after months and months of x-rays, MRI’s, physical therapy, relaxation therapy, a group class on depression I attended, (but didn’t participate in because I wasn’t depressed, I was in pain, darn it), and several attempts by doctors to prescribe anti-depressants. When I refused them, I was labeled an uncooperative patient and told, “Well, then I don’t know what to do for you.”

Why does it seem that the medical professional’s front line response to something they don’t understand is that you’re the problem and you need anti-depressants?

But I held out, and finally found a doctor who knew what was going on. So since this pain felt similar to that pain I recalled his advice and on Saturday evening went to the Y and did some passive stretching with the nautilus machines. Almost immediately the pain decreased, and by Sunday morning I could type for a few minutes again. I went back to the Y on Monday and did the passive stretching again, and yesterday I was able to type for an hour and a half. I can’t wait to go back and do some more stretching today, and hopefully in a week or so I’ll be back to normal again.

It’s said we have the solution to all our problems or dilemmas within us. All we have to do is stop and listen. I wish I’d done so sooner, but I was too busy resisting. I was too busy keeping busy. If I can’t do this, I’ll do that instead. So I cleaned my office, I cleaned my house, I kept moving because I thought that to stop moving would make it worse and freeze my shoulder up again.

In a sense I was right. The motion kept the pain at bay until a stressful phone call sent me tipping over the edge. My muscles tightened, my nerve got pinched, and I was back to square one.

So that situation needed to be examined as well. Either examined, or given up to God.

I chose to give it up to God, and immediately felt better. Now I have to work on not snatching it back :).

We all have things in our lives we have no control over. My experience these past several weeks has been that to worry and obsess about them does more harm than good. Stress from worry can also keep you from being able to do the things you can do, especially when your body is temporarily being uncooperative. What could have devolved into a downward spiral has now been averted by simply taking the time to listen and do what needed to be done to heal.

But even as I was doing this, I realized that most women don’t have that luxury—to be able to drop everything and focus on healing. Until it’s too late and we have no choice but to see to ourselves or end up disabled or dead.

What’s bothering you today? Is it your back, your head, your knees, your legs, shoulders, neck, hands, heart or elbows? What can you do for yourself today to ease that discomfort? If you don’t know, can you take ten minutes today to focus on your body and listen to what it’s trying to tell you? Can you take another ten minutes tomorrow?

Our bodies are amazing. Designed by God to regenerate and heal all on their own if we but give them the time and space and freedom to do so. Instead we push them and push them, and then wonder why they rebel against us. We feel betrayed, and look for quick fix solutions, most of them external to our bodies. I can’t tell you how tempted I was to just zone out on painkillers and muscle relaxants and go to bed.

But I knew that if I did, I would wake up more stiff and sore than ever, with cotton mouth and a groggy head, and nowhere closer to a solution than I’d been when I opted out. Drugs have their place. Sometimes nothing less will do. But most times, our conditions are not that dire. We just need to slow down and listen.

Taking Time to Listen

I'm taking time out to listen today, since my body is telling me I need a break from the computer. In the meantime, I hope you'll enjoy and be inspired by at least one of these quotes on listening. Have a blessed week!

"Many a man would rather you heard his story than granted his request." ~Phillip Stanhope,
Earl of Chesterfield

"Effective questioning brings insight, which fuels curiosity, which cultivates wisdom."
~Chip Bell

"The most basic of all human needs is the need to understand and be understood. The best way to understand people is to listen to them." ~Ralph Nichols

"Bore, n.: A person who talks when you wish him to listen." ~Ambrose Bierce

"One friend, one person who is truly understanding, who takes the trouble to listen to us as we consider a problem, can change our whole outlook on the world." ~Dr. E. H. Mayo

"There is no such thing as a worthless conversation, provided you know what to listen for. And questions are the breath of life for a conversation." ~James Nathan Miller

"You cannot truly listen to anyone and do anything else at the same time." ~ M. Scott Peck

"Man's inability to communicate is a result of his failure to listen effectively." ~Carl Rogers

"Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak; courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen." ~Winston Churchill

"If speaking is silver, then listening is gold." ~Turkish Proverb

Listening to Your Body

It’s Wednesday already, and I’ve been meaning to do a post on wellness, or, specifically, listening to your body. In January, I decided I was going to get back into exercising, as I’d taken several months off—not by choice. I was sailing along, doing my cardio five times a week, but not losing any weight, so I thought I’d extend my exercise time by 20 minutes and bring it up to a full hour a day by simply walking around the track at the Y.

So I started walking. Pretty soon I was having trouble with my feet. They felt like they were on fire. I could barely walk any more. My walking time decreased to less than 15 minutes a day before I could stand it no more, and I had to stop with the elliptical machine too. Something was wrong, but I didn’t know what. I just knew my feet were experiencing some serious pain and walking brought it on.

So I stopped going to the Y. But after a while, the inactivity got to me, so I decided I wanted to start walking again. Something light, with a friend. Just once a week on Sunday afternoon. Baby steps. Our first walk we went one and a half hours. My feet didn’t hurt. The following week we did it again. No problem. The third week we took another route, through a development, and the road angled up at the edges for drainage, instead of down, like a crowned road.

My feet started burning again, and I realized it was because I was walking on a tilted road and it was forcing my foot to bend inward at what is apparently for me an unnatural angle.

What else tilts? The track at my Y. It tilts up at the top and bottom of the oval. And each day the direction we’re supposed to walk or run in changes, alternating between clockwise and counterclockwise. By going regularly, I was alternately tilting one foot, and then the other, at that awkward angle.

Now, I wasn’t supposed to be walking on the track to start with—walkers are supposed to walk around the outside of the track—but it was getting crowded in that walking area and so when the track wasn’t being used, I’d step down onto the track and walk there.

When did I start having burning foot problems? When I added 20 minutes of walking to my exercise regimen and walked on the track.

I went back to the Y and tried it again. Within minutes my feet were burning again. Interesting. I went to my chiropractor and explained what I’d learned. He said absolutely that could happen--radiated nerve pain from walking on an uneven surface--and put everything back in alignment. I went back to the Y and tried walking around the outside of the track. No problem.

So I started slow. 20, 30, then 40 to 50 minutes a day walking around the edge of the track. When it got to be that I was practically speed walking, the wind blowing through my hair like I was roller skating, and this older gentleman was making train whistle noises as I sailed past him, I started up on the elliptical again. Ten minutes to start, then 20 and 30, and now I’m back to where I started (or left off) almost a year ago, before I got the brilliant idea to start walking in addition to my cardio training.

Well, it was a good idea. How did I know the track would do my feet in?

In the meantime, I signed up for this 100 miles in 100 days walking challenge. One mile a day, how hard could it be? But then something strange happened. As the weeks passed, I started picking up speed and going longer and longer, 2-3 miles, then 3-4, and then 4-5. Suddenly I’m racking up five miles a day, and things are shifting around in my body. People are asking me if I’m losing weight. I’m not, the scale hasn’t budged, in fact my weight went up, but my jeans have gotten so loose I could easily wear them with half of my bottom hanging out like some teenage boys do.

So today I will pass the 100 mile mark, and I’m only on my 56th day of walking. But what’s even better is that walking is now a habit and I get irritable if I don’t get my ten miles a week in, between my Sunday walk with my friend and the Y.

I started out with a small goal, one mile a day, and as my body felt better (aka by listening to my body), I slowly increased that to five miles, but have since pulled back to a comfortable four miles a day, easily done between walking and the elliptical within the space of an hour.

If I’m having a bad day, a PMDD day, where my energy level is low, I pull back to two or three miles a day. And some days I don’t go at all. Things happen. Errands need to be run, I get involved in a writing project, or I need to go out of town. But overall, I’m able to put in my ten miles a week without any trouble, and I finally feel good again.

All it took was setting one small goal and taking some baby steps toward that goal. Calling a friend to see if she wanted to walk with me once a week. Now I’m working on doing the same in other areas of my life. Stretching for flexibility, eating well, getting enough rest and relaxation. The added benefit has been that while doing all of that walking around in circles, my mind was free to wander, and I’ve come up with some new creative ideas I’ve been busy putting into motion during my non-walking time.

But when I went back to the Y I started with just 10-20 minutes a day. Now I’m looking at posters for 5K walks and thinking of walking for causes, just to get out, socialize, exercise, and contribute to something positive.

If there’s a goal you have in your life that you’ve been meaning to get around to, there’s no better time than right now to start taking those baby steps toward it. Listen to your heart, and listen to your body. As long as you keep listening, and don’t overdo, neither of them will let you down.

Learning to Listen

I skipped Friday’s FWL post for two reasons…one, I was so busy working on my new PMDD website I didn’t even realize it was Friday until mid-afternoon and two, I already had it in my mind I wanted to continue this theme of listening. Last Sunday I talked about the importance of having one, just one person who will listen to you, your joys and sorrows, hopes and dreams. More than one is always great, if only to give your listener a break (smile), but also to provide different perspectives on whatever it is you are sharing.

But only one will do, if that person is a true friend and a good listener. Still, there are so many people who don’t even one person in their lives they can count on to listen to them, just listen. So if you have one, consider yourself blessed beyond measure. And if you don’t—be the change you want to see in your life. Try listening, really listening, to someone else first. I think you’ll be surprised at the results :).

I find that talking things out with a listener helps to clarify things in my own mind. They don’t even have to do anything but listen, either in person, or on the phone. The same is true of writing. When you journal, your “listener” can be anyone you choose. I like to think of mine as God. I’m sharing my thoughts with God, who has proven to me many times over that He does indeed listen.

Then, on Wednesday, I talked about listening to your body. I think a lot of us forget we even have bodies, unless some part of that body is making life uncomfortable or inconveniencing us. We operate mostly in our heads, and ignore the needs of our bodies for healthy food, rest, relaxation, and exercise. Instead we fill our bodies with whatever food is handy, quick and convenient, load up on caffeine and energy drinks to keep us going, and give lip service to wanting to relax and exercise more.

I don’t exercise because I want to, trust me. I exercise because if I don’t, my body will let me know it with aches and pains and stiffness and creaky knees. Oh, and an overall sluggish feeling that makes me long to lay around and just do nothing. Which, when I give in, gets me nothing but more aches and pains and stiffness and creaky knees.

Just another example of how our bodies speak to us, letting us know what we need to stay strong and healthy. So listening to them is important if we want them to serve us well.

But today I want to talk about another kind of listening. Listening to that voice within. Some call it God, some call it Tao, some call it Mother Wisdom. Whatever you call it, it is vital that you take some time out every day to listen to it. Otherwise you’re nothing more than a hamster on a wheel, running, running, running, with no sense of where you’re going, and getting nowhere. Every moment of your day is filled with doing, not being. And when you fall into bed exhausted at the end of the day, you have no sense of being further ahead than you were the day before…whatever your “ahead” might consist of.

My favorite time for listening is just before and right after I open my eyes after sleeping. I tend to rise to consciousness slowly, and find my best thoughts of the day are the ones that float into my mind before my brain takes over, kicking in with my mental to-do list for the day. Some of my most creative thoughts occur then, but unless I write them down, once my day starts, almost always those thoughts are forgotten within minutes of getting out of bed. Still, I know that’s when I listen best. I also know that if I don’t wake up that way, if the alarm or phone startles me awake, I miss out on that early morning moment of peace and feel grumpy. So I try to go to sleep at the same time each night and wake up naturally.

Another time I listen well is while driving. To do this I need to turn off the CD player and drive in silence. (Talking on the phone while driving, for me, is not an option.) For those of us who can’t seem to make the time to sit still and listen for a few moments each day, listening while driving might work. You bring yourself into the moment and focus on nothing but what you are doing right then—driving. For most of us, driving is automatic, so our minds are free to listen. The same can be done while doing dishes, or folding laundry, gardening, or cleaning.

You don’t have to stop and literally sit still to hear your inner voice. Nor do you have to take up meditation or yoga to hear what’s in your heart. Life gives us many opportunities to listen throughout our days. We just have to learn to relax and accept them.

Silence is a great source of strength. ~ Lao Tzu

P.S. I wrote this post yesterday morning. Imagine my surprise when last night I went to Mass, and the priest who substituted for our regular priest gave his homily on this very subject. He talked about turning off our phones and ipods and all those things that supposedly keep us ‘connected’ and taking time to just listen, instead. I'll take that as a message that I'm on track :)