The Benefits of Deep Listening and Calm Presence
Is the dog doing the whispering here? Maybe we should all be whispering a little more often…
While we are living our lives in Indonesia for three months, our dog is with the family. Our dog is an old male Labrador-Berner-Sennen cross named Baily. Wise beyond his 12 years and a bit tired.
Being around busy, wild children is a bit of a change for him. He knows the children well, but living with them is another cup of tea. We expected him to be lying on his cushion often, distancing himself from the energetic busybodies.
But the pictures and videos we receive are not telling this story. The children are playing wildly and he is not walking away. It seems like he’s hard at work emitting calm energy. Taking his role in the pack and just being.
Wow, wow, and wow! Baily, we’re amazed! It looks like the dog is doing the whispering here…
The film ‘The Horse Whisperer’ has made the term ‘whispering’ popular. And nowadays you have all kinds of ‘whisperers’. What they really do is communicate with the animals by using their energy, their presence, and deep listening skills. Everything is connected, so it’s not an insane idea that we can connect to animals (or each other) in this way.
Anna Breytenbach is my favorite ‘whisperer’. I just love the documentary “The Animal Communicator”. Anna has such a calm, loving presence. And the animals respond to her magically.
It was an eye-opener for me that this way of animal communication is trained by indigenous people in a very practical way. By tracking them. At the end of this film, one of my teachers at Schumacher College, Jon Young, makes an appearance as the animal tracker. He trained Anna and he trained me on how to connect to nature in a very easy, matter-of-fact way.
His method for connecting to nature is called 8 shields. The method contributes solutions to the fact that children are not spending enough time playing outdoors nowadays. It has been life-changing for many.
“To be alive is such a gift. To share the world with these beautiful beings is such a gift. It never ceases to amaze me” — Jon Young in ‘The Animal Communicator’, around 35.50
In this article, you can read a bit more about Jon’s teaching methods.
Well, back to Baily. He’s communicating with the children alright. Adding his wise, calm presence to the room they are playing in. And it’s doing them a lot of good.
Think about it for a minute. What if what Baily does would be enough? What if we all did a little more whispering during the day? Just being calmly present without offering opinions or doing stuff? It’s worth the experiment I think.
So I’ll end this article by giving you some ideas to try out:
- Whenever you feel agitated during the day, take a few deep breaths. Stop what you are doing. Breathe deep into your belly. Exhale completely. Not forcing anything, feel the relaxation. And then continue your normal activities
- Listen deeply without offering an opinion. I like this article by Tim Denning about it
- Feel your body from the inside out. It felt weird to me at first. I’ve been living in my head instead of my whole body for ages. But now I get better at it. For me, it is synonymous with being super-relaxed in my body
- Meditation. Yeah, I can’t get around it. Meditation works for me. It helped me get rid of lots of unconscious mind-shit and now that I’m a bit further on my path, it helps me to find inspiration and purpose. At this moment, I train the Inner Journey of Awakening by Tree Sisters. But I’ve experimented with many other meditation styles as well
- When people ask me how they can find THEIR path, I often reply that you just have to start somewhere, anywhere. Choose something you feel attracted to. Keep feeling if this is right for you at this moment. You will know when this part of learning has come to an end and it’s time for a change. And then you feel attracted to something else and learn new things… Be your own guru… It’s YOUR life…
- The important bit is to really implement what you learn. Give it space in your life. Make a habit out of it. And change the habit when it doesn’t serve you anymore. Make a new habit…
So what are your whispering experiences? I really would like to hear about them in the comments. And if you want to connect, you can find me on LinkedIn or Facebook or somewhere in nature, developing my tracking and whispering skills.
Thank you, Mike, for adding your wise energy to my words and for introducing Baily into my life. Thanks, Baily, for whispering to the children…
