Just Listen

Finishing up Dr. Mark Goulston's book, "Just Listen" and am walking away feeling whole. Whole?

Being heard is key to the health of the soul. Communication is what links us in community and in intimacy.  There are two sides to any exchange: output and input. Listening is input.  Talking is output. Listening to others feeds the soul in ways we regularly forget.  Listening eliminates loneliness, isolation and a host of other non-medical aliments.

We turn to each other in times of crisis to be HEARD.  We turn to others to connect and to HEAR what is occurring in the lives of others that helps us feel better about our own world.  All through LISTENING.

I am refreshing my listening skills by reading Dr. Goulston's magnificent book,"Just Listen."  A 2010 objective for myself is to LISTEN more, talk less.  This will allow me to hear the issues of my particular set of clients and work with them more effectively to find the required solution. To listen is to learn. To listen is to connect deeply.  To listen is to build trust.

So this months' pick is "Just Listen," by Dr. Mark Goulston.  Easy read, well written and immediately applicable in everyone's day-to-day world.  Enjoy!

What's left for fun?

Received this message from a friend of mine. Thought it worth a blog.


Just saw your tweet. Your front yard got tp'd? Seriously? And I didn't grow up here, but honestly, are the kids' parents going to tell them off? Is there any consequence? 

Umm... having been a superb TP'er in my day, I cannot fault American kids for a bit of old-fashioned fun.  It's harmless, a mark of honor among teens (you're worth our time) and just plain fun for those doing it in the middle of night.   It's the thrill of doing something where you CAN get caught, but nobody does.  So what if the front yard looks a bit bedraggled?  All our neighbors came by and laughed and shared with us their own youthful "TP" stories. 

We have taken away all the fun stuff kids used to have outdoors. They now only have the net to surf.  And then we complain bitterly about their sedentary lifestyle. 

I remember egging houses, sneaking into movie theaters, and the best, absolute best, was throwing laundry detergent bombs into the myriad of fountains lining the streets of a planned neighborhood named (of all the Hollywood myths to copy) Mt. Olympus!  It was thrilling to execute, thrilling to not get caught and satisfying to go by the next morning and view each and every fountain foaming huge mountains of suds.  There was a certain "performance art" beauty to it all. We the perpetrators still LOL over the stunt when we get together.

Had a friend who, with a group of young guys in their 19ish year, changed the Hollywood sign to read "Hollyweed"in celebration of the marijuana law of 1976.  The leader of the weed patrol died recently.  His funeral was attended by a cross-section of mourners who knew him throughout his life.  But what was the one thing everyone brought up and told over and over again?  Not his thriving furniture business, not his board membership of several non-profits, but the planning and execution of the 'Hollyweed' stunt. It created a truly joyous LOL moment in an otherwise grim situation. 


So I say - TP away - it's the only fun thing left to do.  And parents, don't call the cops,  just get your kids to clean up the mess.  REALLY,  I mean REALLY!

A Viking Perspective.

It all a matter of perspective. A point of view is completely influenced by the sum total of all personal experiences. A communications professor once explained it this way - everything you have every said and done has lead you to this exact moment in time.

Knowing that all medicine is influenced by that same concept, I listen to my French cousin Claude while he describes unimaginable pain while walking. He tells me he can't walk more than 300 feet before needing a wheelchair or electric cart.

This is not my cousin. For all the years I have known him, he never sits still. He is always on the go; dancing (his big love), traveling, surfing, and walking all over Paris. There are many other physical feats of wonder and he is a man who lives to the fullest. To be relegated to a wheelchair is a cruel joke on such a lively man.

But see this is where the matter of perspective takes over. His diagnosis, delivered by a French Doctor, in a French hospital was simply this: Vikings!

His type hip degeneration was only seen before in the descendants of the Vikings.

If you read the previous posts, you will immediately know that this is not possible. The antecedents of the Michel clan are strictly French, Dutch and German. Not Viking. So why the declaration of a most nebulous genetic history on the part of a French Doctor?

Sum total of everything ever experienced or said by this French Doctor! A point of view influenced by the very geographical location of this French Dr.

In the US, it would have been blamed (yes we Americans love to blame) on sports. In China, blocked chi or heat or cold or bad feng shui.

Now let's give this French doctor a break, shall we? He is limited by his lack of exposure of people from around the world, from many different tribes, with a variety of aliments "never before seen, except in the case of..."

This got me thinking about perspective, point of view and the influences on our lives via exposure to that which we know nothing about.

More about this in the next post.