Being known, heard and loved. Does it matter?

My friend Tracey had a bright idea and she is acting on it by creating a business model around the topic of compassionate listening.  She initiates her blog on the topic with this story:

"Known, Heard and Loved got its start when I was a twenty-three year old college grad working at my first job in health care public relations. I was in my windowless office having a down day when, no kidding, a clown walked into the room. You know, the red nose, white face paint, yarn-mop of hair and wacky clothing ensemble that looked as if it had been made from a melange of Mrs. Roper's muumuu castoffs (please tell me you're old enough to remember Three's Company? "Oh, Stanley...").

Do you happen to know anyone who is a fan of clowns besides clowns themselves (that is, if you actually know a real clown)? I don't, and I'm not a fan - but I am terribly polite. So I braced myself for the clown's unfunny antics and the laughter I'd force myself to muster.

The clown got my attention alright, but in the most subtle of ways: Silently, she pulled a tiny, folded piece of paper out of her huge straw basket, put it on my desk, smiled, bowed and left. 

I opened this tiny scrap of paper, which was only about two inches long and two centimeters wide. In neat script, it said:

"You are known, heard and loved."

Check out her blog at Known, Heard and Loved to see where she is going with an experience that shaped her life.

Hundredth Monkey stuff for sure.

Namaste

Where's the monkey?

Just a question or two for you today...

• Where do you go to get your "good news?" To be fed by what you see and hear?
• Where do you go to see reflections that the World is a positive place in a sea of negative press?
• Where do you go to learn new things? Old dogs and new tricks are required.  The Hundredth Monkey is about evolving into new and better ways of being.
• Where do you go to feed your soul? Are you well nourished this day?

For myself, I go to different and unlikely places these days as I have grown my technology muscle. No longer the news on TV but the choice-filled sharing on you tubes, among my facebook family, public broadcasting and newsworthy blogs. 

Independent films draw me more than ever.  I go to my neighbors - the ones that uplift me - and talk about what they are doing to improve.  I find my yoga mat and have a chat with God.  That's always interesting.  I visit with my favorite authors - the ones who inspire me with innovative ideas and tales of societies that thrive.  I go to the history books that I might know of mistakes that were made by those that did not - and seek to beware of the thinking that preceeded the fall.

Where do you go?

The Hundredth Monkey will rely less on complaining about world affairs and more on changing what no longer serves.

What does that look like for you today? 

ahhhhh...may we all be blessed by your answers.

namaste