Chapter 3 Listening to Yourself and to Others

The Healing Project Book

By Dennis Lantz

CHAPTER 3 Listening to Yourself and to Others

 
I saw a quote on Facebook attributed to Cheryl Richardson. She said, “People start to heal the moment they are heard.”
 
The majority of our thoughts often go unheard, even if we are extremely vocal. Either we don’t articulate them, or we don’t share them. That, in essence is why I am a writer. Most of my thoughts and ideas are presented through writing. There are many means for communicating. Through art or music. Whenever you are passionate about a topic, you will find a way to convey it. There is power in listening… and there is satisfaction in being heard.
 
Healthy connections with others are bonds of the spirit. These connections can be verbal or non-verbal. Your soul doesn’t always have to speak to be heard.
 
When my health problems became worrisome and I recognized that I was growing older and wouldn’t be around forever, even as I regained my health, I suddenly wanted people to listen more. It wasn’t out of a desire to be influential. And it wasn’t because I wanted attention. The truth is that I wanted to connect. Yes, I hoped my words could ease burdens or help others heal. But I also had unique ideas that I wanted to put out into the universe so that others could gain a measure of happiness from them.
 
I was not on social media, and at that time, I had no desire to be. But I had years of collected thoughts and writings… journals, poems, concepts and ponderings about life and the universe. In an attempt to put them into a single coherent document, I started a blog and I called it, rather self-importantly, MY HANDPRINT. My wife, Christy, posted the first link on her Facebook page and, five years later, it still has the most views of any of my subsequent blogs.
 
It felt good to be heard.
 
I consider myself to be one of the lucky ones. I had a glimpse of my purpose at an early age. I was only twelve when I began to think of myself as a writer. Despite not having much to say, or not finishing anything except a few unshared poems, my belief in my purpose remained. The writing world changed completely with the arrival of the internet, Amazon publishing, and similar venues. I am not one who views the rise of these platforms as a detriment to the writing occupation. The ability to share thoughts far outweighs the loss of tradition. To be fair, I was not one of the early bloggers. I came to it late.
 
With each blog, my purpose clarified. The Healing Project blog, admitting for the first time that my physical health had declined, brought an even sharper focus. My dreams didn’t become easier to achieve… but I understood them better.
 
I believe it is my purpose to share my stories… and to get you to share yours. That is another description of The Healing Project.
 
I have always enjoyed listening to people talk about their lives. Some of my favorite memories were listening to my father, uncles, aunts, or elderly friends reveal details about their childhood… or share stories they heard when they were children. When my father passed, one of the hardest parts to accept was that I would never hear him tell tales of our ancestry.
 
Reading words written by someone who has passed on brings a different type of joy. It’s a connection to the remnants of a soul. Obviously, while I don’t know if our stories end with death… our ability to personally share them does.
 
The tapestry of Life is enormous, complex and beautiful. In ancient Greek tradition, the Fates collected threads of human life from the void, measured each one, cut them to length and wove them into an epic saga.
 
Stories end every day. Unless we share them, they will be lost. When a thread comes to an end and another voice goes silent, the tapestry remains. When someone dies, a part of humanity dies with them. But when the memory lingers, so does an echo of that original, unique voice.
 
Many great tales have been lost because the storytellers passed. Family history, tradition and lineage must be shared. We need to know more than names and dates written in an old Bible or on some census form. Stories reveal more. Get the elderly to talk. Listen, remember, and pass on their tales. We need to understand how the lives of departed loved ones shaped, outlined and guided our own.
 
Together we can create our own tapestry.
 
Journals from different time periods are my favorite. While cleaning the attic of the house I grew up in, I found my grandmother’s diary. It was a five-year, day journal, with just enough room for her to write a few sentences each day. And when she got to the end on December 31^st, she would go back to the beginning to start the next year on the same page as she had begun the previous year.
 
I never met my grandmother. She died almost thirty years before I was born. She was twenty-four years old. The diary, which I did not know existed until that moment, gave brief details from the last four and a half years of her life.
 
Not only did I not meet my grandmother, but I did not know much about her. My mother was only twenty months old when her mother died. If my mother heard stories about my grandmother, she did not share them with me. Unfortunately, my grandfather also passed away before I was born. Every story I heard about him was from the later years of his life.
 
Suddenly, I had in my possession a first-hand account of their lives, short though the entries were. Without this diary, I never would have heard her story.
 
I encourage you to write a journal. Updating your social media page is not the same. My journal is digital now. I don’t write every day but try to do so two or three times a week. It doesn’t matter if you believe your life uninteresting. If some future generation reads what you wrote and gains a better sense of what it meant to be alive in this time, then you have accomplished an important task. If they get to know themselves better through your words, their soul will appreciate your gift. Your journal is a gift.
 
All the entries in my grandmother’s diary were three or four short sentences. I’m wordier. Often my entries are a few hundred words. You do whatever is comfortable for you. The important part is to share your story. Your thoughts. A small portion of your soul.
 
I don’t recommend including petty grievances or snarky observations of specific people. People change. I reserve strong language only for specific politicians. I particularly do not attack anyone without just cause. Even then I try to exclude hurtful or demeaning observations. Just remember your future reader when doing so.    
 
In Chapter 6 we will go through a process of writing an Obituary document as preparation for the inevitable. This is the perfect method to tell your story.
 
But first I want to take a look at two of Paul Eckman’s primary emotions. Happiness and Fear.

...

Until next time,

Read, Learn, Live

Dennis Lantz is the author of Zander's Tale. The Spiders of Eden, and the Pine Street Trilogy (Pine Street and the Mighty Mutation Circus, Pine Street and the Dino-Beast Clones, and Pine Street and the Mirrors of Freedom.) His nonfiction Summer in Gentlewoods uses journal entries to tell the real-life adventure of living in a primitive shelter in the woods of his family farm.

Dennis and his wife, Christy, live in Warren Center, Pennsylvania. They share their home with Austin, a Texas rescue who is a cross between a Jack Russell and an angel.

For more information visit my website or follow Dennis Lantz Books on Facebook.