Marriage from the Heart - Listening to the Still Voice

Excerpted from
Marriage from the Heart; Eight Commitments of a Spiritually Fulfilling Life Together
By Lois Kellerman, Nelly Bly

The most creative levels of communication are achieved by drawing an ever-widening circle of receptivity to new ideas and new sources of insight. Listening involves not just hearing the telephone ring or even just having a good conversation. It's also using our mind and senses to attend to messages from deep within. Unexpected sources of understanding can take many forms: intuition, unorthodox solutions, visions, melodies, wishes, or epigrams-anything that feels truly significant to us or to our spouse. The still voice is that wise listener in us that knows which of these innumerable sources of insight carry a message of special importance.

Maureen and I could have had a long discussion about strange coincidences or about her grandmothers ghost versus her own unconscious. We put that aside, though, and looked instead to the underlying significance of her encounter with "Nanna." In so doing we got to something much more essential-the enduring power of love. The still voice told us both, I don't know what happened, only that it was moving and meaningful.

As you turn to inner sources of help with an open heart, pay heed to the hunches, the voices of rest, the rhythms of your body. A number of years ago I became painfully stiff and extremely exhausted. I was eventually diagnosed as having a weakened immune system. My exhaustion became so constant that I took a day off to go to a spa. There I swam in a saltwater pool, took a needle shower, and indulged in a seaweed wrap and a massage. Noting how listless I was even after deep tissue work, the massage therapist suggested I rest as long as I wished in a darkened adjoining room. After a while as I lay there, I felt myself crying out inside, "Why do I hurt so much?" To my surprise, after a time I felt a soft, motherly voice washing over my body saving. "See how tired you are. Every cell in you aches. Can you feel it? You need to rest, my dear, really rest. When I got home, I planned a long stay at a campsite for the upcoming summer. That extended rest, not easy to procure in my overbusy life, may very well have saved me from becoming a chronic invalid at the time.

An openness to the still voice offers solutions to sticky problems that be fixed conventionally How many writers have solved plot problems in their dreams? Though rules and guidelines are dependable, they're not effective every time. At tricky moments we need to look beyond (or beneath) the standard procedure and engage our creative minds, whose mouthpiece is the still voice.

Listening to the still voice can be an uplifting, lighthearted enterprise, but it is always more responsible than fuzzy, magical thinking. Any mother who has accurately "sensed" that her child was in danger will tell you that the still voice's messages have the potential to be disturbing. Perhaps because the still voice within doesn't always tell us what we want to hear, we sometimes resist the wisdom of our inner guide.

Dreams are nightly still-voice messengers for many of us, bringing messages both enlightening and uncomfortable if we care to listen for them. Many problems that plague us during the day can be delegated to the world of dreams. In this safe otherworld we can deeply respond to our problems in a restorative manner.

Once I went out to make copies of several drawings that I was particularly proud of. On returning home I realized that I had lost those cherished drawings (and the copies) somewhere alone the road. I searched lone and hard for my little portfolio throughout the neighborhood. Then one night I found my dream-self at a cemetery mourning their loss with a flood of tears. When I awoke, I resisted what predawn's discerning shadow had clearly told me. It wasn't until I told my husband my dream that he helped me to accept its message: Those drawings coming back. Here, then, is another benefit of communicating openly with your spouse-sometimes it takes the two of us for listening's wisdom to sink in.

We catch glimpses of the still voice in each other when we ask. What did you dream about last night? What is your fantasy for life ten years from now? What songs, pictures, and memories speak most deeply to you, and why? In the first flush of love, couples have these conversations all the time. It is a way of asking. Who are you really? What's inside? Such discussions (or even the answering of a single Question along such lines) help us to reconnect with the hidden parts of our partner-and of ourselves.

The still voice can pick up wisdom from without as well as within. World events, fearsome weather, and the kindly acts of strangers can all speak to us in a special way, giving us important messages of purpose, love, or encouragement. Once a woman came to me for help in dealing with her fear of public places. I referred her to a specialist, and a while later she called to tell me an inspiring story. That week she'd been standing by a crowded shopping mall escalator. She had worked for months to get that far. But she couldn't seem to muster up the courage to step onto the moving stairs. A diminutive elderly woman who must have noticed her apprehension came up, took this hand in hers, and patted it without saving a thing. Matter-of-factly, she led the younger woman to the first step. Then, together, they made it up to the top. Not a word was spoken-they hardly even made eye contact-but the communication between them was both memorable and important.