Listening to Another's Heart

“Thank you for always knowing me, even when I didn’t know myself.” This message from my daughter, who was in college at the time, washed over me like a healing balm as I read it, dissolving years of uncertainty wondering if my love was reaching her.

There’s a difference between loving others the way that you want to be loved, and loving them the way they ask to be loved. 

Loving asks us to listen, to calm the mind’s race toward solution-finding, and to discern and honor that person’s individual need. Loving asks us to BE, rather than DO. Then, the intuition that comes within our full and focused presence directs our next move.

When I was pregnant with my daughter, I had such a clear sense of her independent, curious, adventurous spirit. Somehow, I also knew that this baby was a girl, and that she’d have brown eyes, just like me.

How different we were, too! While I pirouetted in the dance studio, she swam the butterfly. While I embraced the Humanities, she was fascinated with STEM learning – everything that intimidated the heck out of me! I’d chatter at her when she came home from school, and she’d just ask for peace to regroup after a full day of being “on.”

For many years, while she grew up and listened to her own heart and less to me, I quietly stayed clear about what I knew of her spirit, especially those uninhibited moments when I saw her pure vibrancy or peace. No matter how testy our exchanges got, or how much of a failure I felt as a mother, I held on to her essence.

Today, as she awaits the birth of her first child, I see how aligned our hearts are. I see her rub her beautiful belly with that same knowing smile.

Here’s the thing. I’ve felt the heartache of wishing my child would listen to me more. I’ve spent countless hours questioning if I’ve said the right thing, or struck the right tone. What I realized, though, is that I have allowed her to have her own journey. Now, we’ve come full circle and we’ve come together as two women, mothers, friends. 

My heart yearns to hold this kind of space for others. Any day now, I will welcome a new grandbaby to love and lift up in thought. And I will allow this little one its own journey as well.

Years ago, Anita Diamant’s book, The Red Tent, struck a deep chord in me. It’s what inspired this Honest Heart community. A fictional depiction of the lives of Jacob’s wives living in Hebron, it is a beautiful story of sisterhood. Within tribal tradition, each month a woman would enter the red tent to be cared for by the other women, to find rest and renewal and to have a break from responsibility. The red tent was also where sisters laughed and shared stories, celebrated a daughter’s coming of age, and welcomed the birth of a new child. It was a sacred space for all women.

This is what we can do for the women in our lives – see and lift each other, and host a safe space for their unique, authentic wholeness to unfold.