Episode 15--Heidi Gets Happier?

In this episode Heidi's monthlong challenge really gets underway.

Day 2 (starts about 8 secs in) Heidi is feeling happy(er) after connecting with the fabulous Cath... And rhapsodizes about the endless allure (for her--and surely for everyone, right?!) of unraveling the mysteries of our various brain states. Includes the promised Alan Alda story. Continues the pattern of ending with an Encouraging(?) Thought of the Day.

Day 3 (12:30) Heidi is feeling inspired(er) and stays up past her bedtime to share a treasure from the deep past she had dug that very day.

Day 4 (21:30) Heidi is feeling poetic and explores some bits of wisdom on the beauty of True Listening... from fellow "focuser" Rob Foxcroft. (With shout-outs to friends Wakil and Yacine, Alan Alda (again) and Mr Rogers.) The Encouraging(?) Thought of the Day returns.

Day 5 (38:15) Heidi is feeling unhappy(er) and frustrated(er) and doesn't know if she can complete the challenge.

CONTACT INFO FOR A FREE EMPATHIC LISTENING SESH as mentioned in Day 4:
1) message Heidi through the Heidi Makes a Podcast! Podcast! Podcast! fb page,
or
2) through her fb profile (Heidi Juniper),
or
3) email her at akindfulheidi@gmail.com

Music credits:
*Scott Joplin's Original Rags (from the piano rolls)
*Poddington Bear's Elephants On Parade
*Robert Farmer's The Overhanging Leaf

Photo credits: Free-Photos at pixabay (main ep) and Scott Waterhouse ("soundbite")

Transcript

From Touching the Source by Rob Foxcroft (full text available at focusing.org.uk)

Paths

Befriending – You are not the feeling – you yourself are not any

content.

You sit down quietly next to the feeling. You become profoundly feeling-

centred. You are here to listen with interest and great kindness to an

emerging story – here to be fearless and sincere with yourself, about how

things are going (or not going) in your life right now. You are preparing a

friendly welcome, since the feeling may be about to open.

Or maybe not. Sometimes it seems as if nothing will ever change. Still, you

can be with the way it is. We can be gentle, accepting, patient and enduring.

Nothing has to happen. We can always be kind.

Actively un-knowing – We can't know what may come. 

We may be carried far beyond our limitations. Something shadowy and 

unformed is beginning

to stir in the silence of the heart. You are dwelling here for a little while –

waiting, asking and holding. It is essential to be uncertain – open, curious,

unintrusive, and deeply receptive.

Listening to one another with compassion

Contact – Contact is the key to any friendship. Until we are in

contact, the good which may happen is severely limited, and the evil

lowering.

When there is a real sense of meeting or encounter, an awareness of a

living contact actively sustained moment after moment after moment,

a profound mutual sense of accepting and being accepted by one

another may creep up on us. A quality of trust and safety flowers, and

a sense of rapport or mutual resonance may grow naturally.

Being in contact is a miracle, both in itself, and in its creative and

healing power.

Humanity – Everything we have learned or can imagine is with us.

Our feelings, memories, dreams and reflections inform our meeting,

and yet nothing must come between us, nor disturb what is unfolding.

Our sensitivity to the human condition is a vast and subtle

background, which profoundly illuminates what is happening here.

Humanity is imagination, out of which empathy is possible.

There is a clear duty to be vividly alive – to be in the body – to bring to

our listening our whole experience of ourselves, of persons, and of the

world – in so far as we can.

The person we are listening to has a right to expect that, because

otherwise what we are offering is inescapably – in the present moment

– an experience of conditionality, isolation, ambiguity, abandonment

and betrayal.

Humanity is about standing in the open – about having the courage to

be defenceless – about fully engaging with one another with the whole

of our being.

Humanity is about being aware of our own feelings.

Reflecting-and-Refusing – As the person says each little piece,

you say back the whole felt essence of it.

The person tends to pause, asking : is that right? – Listening is easy,

when the person refuses to be misunderstood!

Both people are taking great care that what is being said is heard in

just the way that it is meant, that nothing gets twisted or heard in a

merely conventional sense. In this way we know that what is meant is

what is heard, and so you and your companion stay close together.

Even so, some of what comes may be private, just for the person.

A listener is not a guide. Your work as a listener is to enter the other

person’s world, as if it is your own, but always without losing the as-if.

Always following – never losing sight of the person, the one who is

carrying this weight of experiencing, living it, going through both the

pain and the joy of it.

Our being together is gentle, vivid, friendly, supple, easy and

respectful. There is a natural sway here, to-and-fro, flowing forward.

Sensing-and-saying may tend to slow down, gradually becoming clear,

deep, wide, and strongly forward-moving.

Listening is very peaceful.

Listening is easy. You can do it.

From ancient times, listening – to ourselves and to others – has brought

gifts of imagination, vision, blessing and healing.

What happens may be surprising.

What comes may be fresh and new – forceful and active – or tender and

heart-warming.