Hello, happy Wednesday
I am moving along on a book that has changed titles twice.
First is was Love, Lust and Relationship.
Second, is was Love, Lust and Enlightenment: Falling Back in
love with your mate, and becoming “almost enlightened” to boot.
Both those versions started like this…
“This is a book about enlightenment.
No, wait, this is a book about great sex.
No, wait, this is a book about being a great friend to that
person who is driving you crazy—your partner.
No, wait, this is a book about being a great friend to another
person who is driving you crazy—yourself.”
It’s was an exciting title, and the book filled up with touch
games and talk games and even some games to get people clear on how amazing and
important it was to be in their bodies.
And then it need to be a bigger book. It need to include a big
synthesis of all I have learned in all these years as a Movement Coach and a
Relationship Coach.
And what everything had in common was what I realized could be
called Radical Listening.
Thus the new title:
The Power of Radical Listening:
Creating the Magical Bedroom,
The Magical Boardroom, & the
Forever Young Body
Radical listening to each other’s talk for a magical bedroom and
magical boardroom/ workplace. Radical listening in touch for that revitalized
and magical bedroom. And radical listening to your own body, via present
awareness of movement, for the forever young body.
And how did this “forever young body” come to the bedroom and
the workplace?
Well, obviously, a body that works well, is better in the sack.
And a body without neck, back and shoulder issues is much more happy at work.
And it’s deeper, it goes to the principles that make Radical
Listening so powerful.
I lucked into all this when I was 55 and I took a weekend
workshop, after which I felt as if I was 10 years old again, in movement, and
acuity of thinking.
This led to 9 years of training in two systems, the Feldenkrais
Method and the Anat Baniel Method, that created a platform for helping high performing
musicians and people with back, neck and shoulder issues, and children with
special needs.
How did it do this?
By bringing people into the present, deeply.
By creating situations of non habitual behavior and new options.
By connection of places that usual aren’t connected.
And these are how Radical Listening will work in talking and in
touching and in movement.
For example in talking to a loved one, or an estranged one, or a
person with whom things are kind of blah and you’d like to have REAL
connection, here’s a major game in the book.
Listening back and forth for 18 minutes.
Take a timer, and commit to three turns of three minutes each.
In the turns one talks and the other listens.
We apply all three principles of Radical Listening.
Being present:
Both the talker and the listener attempt to be present to their
bodies, to the melody of the words, to each other’s breathing.
Non-habitual:
The listener, says nothing and does not “think” about their
response .
The talker does NOT talk about:
The other person ( if it’s a troubled issue, there are patterns
of way too much talking about the other)
The relationship ( ditto)
What the person said in the prior turn
This last constraint brings about much better listening because
we aren’t formulating what we are going to say in response, because that’s off
the table.
It makes easier talking because the person speaking doesn’t have
to worry about what the other person is going to “think” about what they said.
( Later, of course, this might want to be in the game)
To make things even juicer, a non-habitual recommendation for
the speaker would be:
Talk about present noticing. ( I feel my hand on my pants. I
feel my breath coming in. I see your brown eyes. I see your breathing---
noticing about the other person is a far cry from the usual commenting about
their personality)
Talk about what they like. (This a far cry from the habit of
much of talking to be about complaining)
And the third part:
Connecting: Look each other in the face or eye as you talk, and
as you listen.
With touch.
These three are great:
Present.
Non habitual
Connection
With movement
Present
Non habitual
Connection
All to be revealed in the book. Call for a sample of each type
of exercise in the first four chapters. 360-317-4773
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