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Beyond The Paradigm: The Skills of Limitless Human Potential A Series for the Caretakers of Humanity
By Valerie Thea Vandermeer
In this ongoing series Valerie presents some of the “Skills of Limitless Potential” which form the elements of her EarthWalk methodology for working with children. These specific skill sets tend to be natural attributes for children, but with varying degrees of expression. Although innate, they are often forgotten or weak from disuse and most adults must remember and re-learn them.
II: Whole Body Listening
We tend to listen with our ears and certain portions of our brain. We don’t realize that the entire structure of the human body is a tool designed for reception of both gross and subtle energies. The body is designed to perceive sensory data on many levels. We may not be “hearing” with our whole body in the traditional sense of the word, but we certainly are capable of “listening” with our whole body.
We tend to be most aware of the overt aspects of communication. Spoken language is an obvious skill in our human repertoire. Body language can have degrees of subtlety from readily discernable to nuances that only the well-trained eye can recognize and articulate. Nearly everyone knows the difference between a smile and a frown, someone putting their head down, slumping shoulders or backing away from us. They are clear non-verbal demonstrations of communication.
There are also many less evident layers of communication that all work together to create messages and meaning in our encounters. Tiny, nearly imperceptible movements occur in our muscles and tissues constantly. We don’t consciously perceive these micro-movements as discreet individual “bits” of information. Instead our brain processes and digests this information and delivers it to our consciousness in various ways. Often when we perceive a “gut feeling” or get an intuitive sense of something, we are simply feeling the result of our brain processing subtle body language cues from the people around us.
There are also layers of energy – actual electrical impulses that emanate from each of us and are perceived by each of us. Every cell in our bodies, every organ and structure, even every thought we have, sends forth energy which combines to create our presence. It boggles the mind to stop and consider how much vibratory information we all carry in our personal space. If you’d like to experience a tiny fraction of this, put your hands up with palms facing about 18” apart. Now breathe and with each exhale imagine that your palms are breathing out too. Slowly bring your palms together until you become aware of subtle contact – a feeling of energy, tingling or a sensation of something between your two palms.
What we think of as empty space is nothing of the sort. Between your palms exists a fascinating myriad of vibrational content which surrounds your whole body as well. As living organisms our presence extends well beyond our skin encapsulated borders. We often diminish our awareness of our full presence and the full presence of others by misunderstanding the value of our feelings and inner knowing. “It’s just a feeling” or “There’s nothing to be afraid of” are pretty common expressions. But these ideas teach us to discredit one of our most profound capabilities: our physical system’s ability to draw significant meaning out of a vast soup of surrounding impulses and information.
We are all capable of perceiving a full range of sensory data. It is an inborn ability, but one that can suffer from disuse. As we practice our sensory capabilities, the world around us grows richer and more dynamic: We literally engage more of the world with our presence. This is Whole Body Listening.
Whole Body Listening is the full utilization of all available sensory receptors for engaging and synthesizing meaning from the range of subtle and overt sensory data that surrounds us. Whole Body Listening is our natural state of being – it’s what our bodies are designed to do. And we’re designed that way because our thoughts, health, attitudes, ideas and everything else about us form an outpouring of information which surrounds us. Our bodies literally broadcast and perceive who we are.
Remember Charlie Brown’s friend Pigpen wandering about surrounded by a cloud of dust? Well, we wander about surrounded by a cloud of us.
As we grow, many learn to block out much of this communication. We learn to speak and we learn that verbalization is culturally important and vital to our ability to survive. We learn to dismiss our inner knowing and take our attention off Whole Body Listening. Ultimately we forget that we are continuously broadcasting who we are through our presence.
This is confusing and frustrating to the children in our lives since their primary pre-verbal mode of communication is through Whole Body Listening. In the earliest days, weeks and months of life we unwittingly set up an inherent sense of disorientation and separation in our children by not knowing how to communicate naturally with them, through the innate channels of Whole Body Listening.
The communication gulf continues to grow as the child enters the world of language. Now the child is able to “pick up” the dissonance that occurs when people around them don’t say what they mean. It’s deeply distressing to be immersed in the virtual haze of ambiguity that surrounds the many people who are unconscious about the degree of information their presence conveys. The child moves through a world that appears to be populated by unaware and deceptive beings.
The child can also feel voiceless or have a sense of not being heard because the surrounding adults are listening with the ears and brain only, rather than engaging in Whole Body Listening. If you have ever been in the presence of someone who truly listens with their entire being to your entire presence then you know how incredibly complete and fulfilling human communication can be. Our typical interactions with children are superficial and feel empty to a child immersed in the amazing richness of human presence.
As adults we tend to spend a great deal of time and energy attempting to mask ourselves from others. As emerging Whole Body Communicators we realize that this unnecessary and fruitless. Our children see and know us deeply. Whole Body Listening is a basic human skill that enriches our life experience and connection to others. But it is also a vital tool for us all to re-member and re-master in order to properly support and nurture the coming generations.
There are many simple skills for engaging in Whole Body Listening. Some can put into practice with the children in our lives right away. The activity below was designed for therapists and counsellors, but is easily adapted for the home and classroom. It’s deceptively simple. Try it and watch what happens!
Before child enters your office or space, sit for a moment and visualize that child. Without judging yourself, notice the thoughts, ideas and feelings that this child elicits in you and create in your mind a visual symbol for each one. Imagine that the symbol moves out of your consciousness/mind and into the space surrounding your body.
Because this practice brings the inner and outer fields into resonance, it will serve to draw less attention to those thoughts, ideas and feeling and will make you feel more balanced and whole to a child with full communication abilities. When the child enters your space, allow a moment of silent greeting in which you simply breathe and allow the child to receive your full being. You will find yourself more present and fully engaged with the child.
When a child is on the verge of learning to speak, we pay great attention to the babbling, patiently anticipating for the first syllables of language. In awakening our Whole Body Listening abilities, we must give ourselves the same great attention and patient anticipation and trust that we are formulating our very own language of conscious subtle communication.
Copyright © 2005 Valerie Thea Vandermeer
To schedule a personal phone consultation with Valerie, click here. This article is the first in a series written by EarthWalk Founder, Valerie Thea Vandermeer, being published by Children of the New Earth Magazine Online. To read the rest of this series when it is first published or for more cutting edge articles on parenting, nurturing and educating today's children you can subscribe to CNE by clicking the link below.
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Copyright 2002-2005 Valerie Thea Vandermeer. All rights reserved. For problems or questions regarding this website contact valerie@earth-walk.net. Last updated: July 22, 2006. |
