How To Listen To The Deep Current of What Your Life Wants To Say

Some thoughts on how to listen to your life

Sometime when you get a chance watch the clouds on a windy day.

Sit still for ten minutes, look up at the clouds, and ask yourself this question, “Am I moving forward in my life like these clouds drifting in the sky.”

Ask yourself if the life you’re living is the one you want to be living.

It’s a challenging question, and it takes courage to ask it. That’s why I’ve largely avoided this question for over a decade. It’s not a light-hearted question, and your answer could involve a major tweak to your life.

I’ve made a lot of wrong choices in my life because I haven’t taken the time to ask the tough questions, especially when I’ve been at a crossroad in my life.

Usually, in the few times I’ve been at a crossroad, my modus operandi is to make a knee-jerk reaction. I rush off to get a job without even thinking if the job relates to my interests, abilities, and passions — and then I’m stuck there.

This time is different. I’m thinking deeply about my life after a few knee-jerk reactions, and I’m taking the time to listen to what my life wants to say to me.

That’s what I was doing while looking up at the clouds. I was listening to my life, and you can do it too. Let me share some thoughts with you from a wise older writer who has helped me to learn this vital skill of listening to my life.

Listening to your life is not something most people have learned how to do. Speaking for myself, it’s not something that I have learned how to do, but it’s the subject of Parker J. Palmer’s collection of essays in Let Your Life Speak.

He opens the book with a poem by William Stafford, “Ask Me,” that is about learning to listen to your life rather than lining it up to meet external values:

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