Читать книгу The Way of Nowhere: Eight Questions to Release Our Creative Potential - Nick Udall - Страница 39

When we were young, our mothers often had a strange sixth sense about us. If we had done something wrong or if we were worried or hurt, they seemed to know immediately. ‘How did you know that?’ we would ask. ‘It's written all over your face,’ they'd reply. Because of their deep care and love for us, they had developed a quality of attention that enabled them to sense what was going on almost before we did.

Some people have this skill naturally and others learn to develop it. Some forms of psychotherapy, counselling and coaching have powerful processes for enhancing it. People who have taken this skill to a high level have a strange magnetism because they can look beneath the surface of life. They are not as seduced as the rest of us by the form of things. They are less distracted or fooled by words, actions or behaviour.

Beneath these outward forms lies our deeper self, our essence. People who are truly present are far more aware of their own essence and that of those around them. They attend to how people are feeling and the quality of their relationships. The most insightful can then name what they see with skill and compassion and in doing so alter the balance between form and essence.

We all have the potential to empathize with those around us to the extent that we can feel their feelings and think their thoughts. We can learn to listen to one another as if we were hearing from a part of ourselves. When this capacity achieves its fullest expression it can seem uncanny, almost mystical.¹