Listening deeply

This blog is a place to cultivate conversations that matter and to re-imagine work, together.

Yesterday was Election Day.

You either voted or you didn’t.

Today

I am noticing stories everywhere

about voting—choosing—and

disenfranchisement: being denied the right to vote—to choose.

I am noticing stories of brave, innovative people pushing back at a system that tries to take away their right to vote—to choose.

Stories—too many—too sad—too important not to mention—of people being systematically disenfranchised—denied their right to vote—to choose.

Listening to the stories—and they can be hard; they are hard—matters. Hold them tenderly.

This fantastic cochlear spiral, these eyeballs and fingertips, these. Hold them.

When you choose.

When you eat, when you email, when you breath three times—listen with your whole self!

Last month

I invited you into the radical act of 3 deep breaths and a few good questions to ponder—

simple magic,

coming home to ourselves, again, bringing us to our senses;

grounded we are able to listen deeply to each other.

I love how poet James A. Autry writes about the power of deep listening, noticing stories at work, holding them tenderly, weaving:

Threads

Sometimes you just connect,

like that,

no big thing maybe

but something beyond the usual business stuff.

It comes and goes quickly

so you have to pay attention,

a change in the eyes

when you ask about the family,

a pain flickering behind the statistics

about a boy and a girl in school,

or about seeing them every other Sunday.

An older guy talks about his bride,

a little affectation after twenty-five years.

A hot-eyed achiever laughs before you want him to.

Someone tells about his wife’s job

or why she quit working to stay home.

An old joker needs another laugh on the way

to retirement.

A woman says she spends a lot of her salary

on an au pair

and a good one is hard to find

but worth it because there is nothing more important

than the baby.

Listen.

In every office

you hear the threads

of love and joy and fear and guilt,

the cries for celebration and reassurance,

and somehow you know that connecting those

threads

is what you are supposed to do

and business takes care of itself.