22nd November 2024

Search

Listening to Yourself

Listening

So this one’s hard for me. The universe has been trying very, very hard lately to remind me that the word I chose for this year was listen. It’s reminding me that I need to practice what I preach. Let me explain. It feels like everything is taking longer than it should lately. Let me rephrase that. Things are taking longer than they usually do for me. So although I’ve gotten good at my practice of letting go of expectations of others, it occurs to me as I’m speaking that it has amped up the expectations of myself.

You see, normally, I resonate at a pretty high frequency and things come easily to me, my creativity, my inspiration, my joy, my flow. But for whatever reason, I’m kind of sitting in a kind of anticipatory state. It’s not even looking forward to or getting ready for it’s weirdly unfamiliar. If I were my own client, I would say, “define unfamiliar”. And I might reply, something like, Well, usually, I’m really inspired to edit my podcast or to, you know, write something this morning, or to just look at the lake and feel my creativity bubbling up inside of me. But I’m not used to not feeling that. And then I might ask, “what is it about not feeling that way that presents a challenge for you in this moment?”

listen

And I might reply:
“well, I’ve never really run out of things to put me in that frequency. And it’s a little bit alarming when the usual things don’t – to be honest.” I might then point out to myself, that I said, things “put me in that frequency”. And then I might ask, “have you ever considered that that frequency is within you, and that you don’t need things to put you in it? But rather, you simply need to tune in to it?

And then I might go, “Holy shit. You’re absolutely right.” And I might even ask, “remind me, how do I do that again?”. And then I would tell myself to listen. “It’s the word you chose”. Just listen. Listen to yourself. The word was not do or take action or manifest or go for it or inspire it was simply listen.”

So, I’m reminding myself to listen. And when I do, apply that, listening to myself. I understand what I need in this moment. And so, as hard as it is, I am going to not try to finish the episode that I’m editing, which I keep telling myself I’m going to get out this week, I am going to slow down. And I’m going to enjoy this week. And I’m gonna listen to what I need in each moment.

That may inspire me to finish it, who knows, it may encourage me and invite me to step away. Either way, I wanted to invite and encourage you to do the same thing this week as we head into our holidays. I don’t know about you, but I’m super influenced by the people that I love. And I want everything to be right. And a lot of the expectations come from there. So I’m just going to slow down and make sure that everything is right inside for me so that I can then offer my very best self to them and create each moment as it comes.

Listen to Audio Version here!

Published in Collaboration with:

Wide Open Stages

Also by Lisa Hopkins:

Our Limitless Capacity to Thrive

Discovering Our “WHO”

Join TheatreArtLife to access unlimited articles, our global career center, discussion forums, and professional development resource guide. Your investment will help us continue to ignite connections across the globe in live entertainment and build this community for industry professionals. Learn more about our subscription plans.

The Market

Love to write or have something to say? Become a contributor with TheatreArtLife. Join our community of industry leaders working in artistic, creative, and technical roles across the globe. Visit our CONTRIBUTE page to learn more or submit an article.

STANDBY

logo-2.jpg

Thank you so much for reading, but you have now reached your free article limit for this month.

Our contributors are currently writing more articles for you to enjoy.

To keep reading, all you have to do is become a subscriber and then you can read unlimited articles anytime.

Your investment will help us continue to ignite connections across the globe in live entertainment and build this community for industry professionals.

Are you ready? Select JOIN to get started!