What Aren't You Hearing?

This week I had the opportunity to talk to a very old and dear friend of mine about this very topic ‘What Can’t You Hear?’.

What do I mean by this?

Well I mean what aren’t we listening to in our body that’s blocking us from truly hearing our deepest desires.  Our soul’s purpose.  Our true north.

For me, finding clarity and my purpose actually started with the awareness that I wasn’t following my true path.

Looking back, I realise my body was screaming at me.  I was exhausted, had such little energy, was emotionally eating (and the pounds started to pile on!).  I felt incredibly frustrated with the hours I was working and that I had little time for anything else important in my life.  When I did have time off I would crash and not want to move from Netflix.

Fast forward and I sleep really well (well most nights!), I have so much more energy and motivation, I no longer feel the need to emotional eat as I have other things in my life that fill me up.  I have a meditation, yoga, journaling and gratitude practice and connect much more regularly with friends and family.

So how did I get here? Simply put, I had to listen. 

I had to make a conscious choice that I no longer wanted to live and feel the way I was and to turn inward to listen.

Firstly, let’s talk thoughts.  Through journaling I was able to understand the difference between the stories I was telling myself and the truth.  I identified my limiting beliefs and recognised patterns of behaviour with relationships, my reactions to things and even my decision making.  I admit that I still listen to my inner critic more than I would like.  But I am much better at identifying when it’s her voice that’s speaking.

Next up my emotions.  I prefer to not think of having ‘good’ and ‘bad’ ones and try instead to think of them as messengers that all have something to say.  Take anger for instance.  My anger often tells me when my boundaries have been broken and helps me reset.  I find it easier to release the emotion once I’ve named it and identify where I’m storing it in my body (a tight chest for instance).  This practice (and it is a practice!) has really helped me not only learn more about myself but also stop with the many distracting behaviours I used to subscribe to (i.e. emotional eating).

Listening to my body (which was my original messenger and signal that something was really off) became easier when I started peeling back the layers of my thoughts and emotions.  I could really hear that I needed more rest and I could tell which foods really didn’t suit me and which ones were nourishing.  I knew I was on the right track when my skin started to clear up and the extra pounds fall off.  Meditation was really helping reduce my stress levels and my sleep greatly improved.

Now, I would like to mention that I’ve talked about my mind, emotions and body separately but they of course aren’t separate at all.  They all affect one another and when I started down my healing journey of listening, they worked together very holistically.

Listening helped me find my path and really tune into my soul’s calling, what my spirit was saying. This is a practice I now try and do daily with my morning journaling and keeps me in tune and listening to what’s going on within.  I don’t always get it right but I do find myself getting cues every day.  It astonishes me to think of how many I was previously ignoring or I just couldn’t hear!

And because I like to highlight the importance of our environment I would like to say that having a calm place to do this practice has helped immensely.  I keep it organised and clutter (or chaos!) free.  I am surrounded with natural materials and plants that really ground me.  My space supports me so I can keep doing the work.

If you’d like to hear more I talk about this very topic on my good friend Christopher Morgan’s podcast ‘Over the Hump’.

We’d love to know in the comments what you think.