My conscious mind was the last to know.
Have you ever had this experience? Suddenly, I saw myself in terms of my process rather than my products. I saw that in all my study, work and interests, I was a listener. I had developed a practice without thinking much about it. It turns out to be my nature. Or a big part of it. I had often experienced myself as a conduit, a connector, a radio tower. A giant receptor. Feeling and listening. Attentive, at times, vigilant as a wild animal. We all have this capacity to some extent or other. Then one night, at a women’s gathering, to my amazement, I found myself telling a new acquaintance that I was planning a workshop. While it felt true, it was the first I’d (consciously) heard of it. The woman told me she wanted to support me in that. And so it was.
Its working name (see below) is ‘Wild Listening’, by which I mean the turning of our attention to the passageway from the known into the unknown. Our ears perk up, as a wild animal might, sensing another presence, a smell, a sound. We may sense a change coming, a question, a signal, a voice. Something makes us want to tune in more closely. I imagine you have experienced something similar. How would you explain that process? How would you teach it?
Working with the unknown requires that you recognize or sense what you know and don’t. What is familiar and not. And how you feel when you are at that threshold. For example, a new job, a situation that calls into question your abilities or knowledge, a hint of a feeling that someone is lying to you, the emergence of an emotion from a childhood trauma, a trip to a country whose language you do not know, a new business venture, creating a new show, a painting. All these involve a transition from the familiar to the unfamiliar. Perhaps a feeling of conflict, vulnerability?
What about the entirely unknown? The invisible. The silent. The concept of G-D. Cultural values not easily parsed. How do we work with the likelihood that no one has “the truth”? Or do we feel that we are privy to the truth? Are we uncomfortable acknowledging that we don’t know? Do we need to know? We find ourselves in the context of fake news, internet overwhelm, commercial news and science denial. But the reality has always been that none of us knows much for sure outside our little realm. How can we?
There is a lot to not know. I recognized that at a young age. Not because I was smart or wise, but because I’d experienced a series of profound events (which I will not recount here) that overwhelmed both my ability to understand and the ability to describe them. So I listened attentively, assuming others had had similar experiences, to hear what they would say about them.
I’m still listening.
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I look forward to seeing you in one of my upcoming workshops. Pilots are forming now for this one:
Listening to the Unknown: A New Workshop for Human Beings
Living is a journey that passes through the familiar into the unknown. Again and again. Relationships. Creativity. Work. Beliefs. Questions. Decisions.
Whatever your unknowns are, it can be hard sometimes to choose to listen in order to hear that little voice inside.
In this workshop, we’ll learn and practice the skill of “deep” or “wild” listening.
Wild listening allows us to attune ourselves to the unknown — meaning anything that you perceive, whether it’s the cultural or collective unconscious, emotion, feeling, a need for change, imagination or Nature herself.
Part of the practice of listening wildly is to be still with the feeling of vulnerability, often felt in the passage between the known and unknown, as we move toward our new learning, a reaching for or letting go.
Together, we’ll explore ways to embrace the process of listening as a part of creative living, and tune into our unknowns with curiosity to gently expand our definition of self.
Who knows where our listening will lead us?
While this series of pilot workshops has ended, below is the current workshop being offered, as of November ’23.
Wondering our Way Home through Inquiry into Our Interior
In our human search for meaning, we try to understand, we want to know. We need answers. We think we can think our way there. Sometimes yes, sometimes no.
Another way is through understanding of and trust in the process of learning, the meandering movement through knowns and unknowns, confidence and vulnerability, mystery and revelation, asking and listening for what unfolds.
We can choose to be curious in those places where we feel lost. We can learn to listen to what is not yet named or nameable. We can find comfort in the silent still places.
Listening and feeling and noticing and waiting for our OWN words to emerge from that sensing, we discover what is living within ourselves and we find it waiting to be heard.
We can deepen our belonging and connectedness to ourselves through this act and discover what changes in our exterior worlds as we attune ourselves more closely to our interior lives.
Using tools all humans carry within themselves, we will develop the sense of ourselves as relational, one of the most wonder-filled experiences of all.
If this sounds like a good fit for you now, please join us for this evening salon series.
A five week commitment is required in order to establish communal comfort. Group size will be from 5-8.
Please contact me with any questsions: laurajoviala@yahoo.com
Check out my blog at laurajoviala.com
your voice : from the inside out 