Listening to God.
By: Princess Gaia
Tags: Retreats, Prayer, Dark, Storytelling, God

So, let me try:

Mother Teresa once said to a journalist that she was praying to God every day. Being asked by her interviewer what she is telling Him in her prayers, she answered: “Oh, I am not talking much, when I pray. I am rather listening to God.” After that, the journalist questioned, that when she was rather listening, what would God tell her then? She replied with a smile: “Well, He is rather listening as well.”

What a beautiful picture. Mother Teresa and God. Both are listening to the other. Sitting in stillness. Praying. This is communication. In silence.

The moment we are born, we communicate. All day long. Even if we are not always aware of it. Means that communication happens basically as if by itself, on behalf of our survival as human beings on Earth. It makes us the social beings we are. It is the root of all events in our daily life.

And when we communicate, we listen, we talk, we perceive, we react, we receive, we give. Verbally, nonverbally, even invisibly. Communication takes place within us — so-called intrapersonal — and outside of us — so-called interpersonal or societal/environmental/global. By nature, there is a flow equilibrium between the inner and outer communication. In this way we can serve our own basic needs and those of the other beings around us.

Sometime along the way of human development, though, this flow equilibrium between inside and outside has gone out of hand. And the noise as well as the load of communication has risen due to more and more knowledge we have gained as society. Luckily, we have found technology to support us in creating a new short-term balance by making the complexity of communication more effective across the globe. But because short-term solutions often are noth thought for long-term, we realize today, that what once was meant to serve for balance has become an imbalanced mess.

We have become extremes. Being extremely introverted or extroverted — and in both directions extremely noisy — for many possible reasons, be it the increased striving for knowledge or the importance we give to traumata and experiences we have lived through up until now. Life, or the extreme life we have created ourselves, has finally created extreme human beings out of us. And as such, we overwhelm one side of us. Either the talkative inner essence or the noisy outer world.

We feel like a carrier ship in the ocean, which is carrying the whole load only on one side and thus, is almost drowning. Most of the time, we know no better but quickly, as fast as we can, transport the whole load onto the other side. From one extreme to the other. The ship is stuck in the Ocean, we are so much concerned with carrying the load from one side to another — from inside to outside — that we have stopped the motor. And we have the feeling that we are not able to reach the saving lighthouse at all, even if we can already see it on the horizon.

And because no one of the others seems to hear our suffering, we call it out loud. We need to make some noise. Listening to those around us would make no sense anyway. We are not able to support them with this mess we carry.

As therapist, I am dealing with these kinds of overloaded systems of clients every day. And I am most of the time suggesting another way of dealing with that humongous weight we carry. I simply recommend that we “tidy up our mess” and once we have done so, I am sure that we finally realize that we have been “at home” all along. We have reached the secure shore as if by ourselves. At home, in safety, in the place where all noise is gone. Home is when the messy load has left us for freedom to breathe. Home is that place with no pain, no imbalance, no suffering. Only joy, light, love. And emptiness.

The greatest medicine, as I like to say, is emptiness. This — and the picture of Mother Teresa talking to God — was the main reason for me going into the darkroom retreat.

Emptiness. Silence. Retreat. Listening to God who would listen to me. Four days in the womb of mother earth.

And indeed, up until today, I have never experienced something more beautiful, pure, spiritual, heart-opening, inspiring, profound. Being in the darkness, loosing touch of time and space. On the intensely long and dark days, I meditated and practiced Yoga a lot. This allowed me to look even deeper inside myself and to gain more focus and clarity, to come in contact with my inner truth.

In the dark, I found the feeling of abundance of love and light. My life feels different, now that I have experienced the depths of darkness. My intention of acting is much clearer, my perspective on life is even brighter, I have become more grateful and humble about being human and the way that I work with my clients has become more flowing than it ever was.

I feel like a butterfly that has left the cocoon, like being born a second time. Reset. And a new kaleidoscopic world with beautiful scents, tastes, images, sounds, sensations ahead of me.