TheStillSmallVoiceWhisperer

What is The Still Small Voice? And what is Listening?

What do I mean (and we, collectively mean) when I/we say Still Small Voice? And what does the word listening really mean? Especially in this context.

You may already have a good idea of what I’m talking about..but let's look at it anyway.

Listening to the Still Small Voice means paying attention to the still small voice inside you.

You may know it in different ways:

Such as: -The voice that tells you not to go out tonight -The instinct not to walk alone to your car at night -The compulsion to walk around the house one more time before you leave and you notice the stove is still on

These are the more practical ways that the Still Small Voice inside of us is watching out for us keeping us safe.

Then there are practical yet more, let’s say mystical, examples of the still small voice: -You find the perfect job and have a great job interview. They offer you everything you could have ever wanted and then some. Yet you don’t feel right about it and agonize but ultimately you don’t take it. You feel like a fool and like you’ve lost your chance. Yet three months later THE manager who offered you that perfect job is in jail for embezzling and not paying the employees. -You are at a great party with friends. The food, the friendship – it’s the best party you have been to all year. All of a sudden, you just don’t feel right and decide to leave. You hem and haw, telling yourself that you are crazy, but you write it off as tiredness and indigestion and say your goodbyes. You leave and find out a few days later, the cops arrived to arrest the host who runs a drug smuggling ring out of the house. All the other guests were detained for 24 hours. And that next day you met the woman who changed your career forever..

These may be a bit extreme but I wonder if you might be able to find a bit of truth in them within your own life.

Then there is the Still Small Voice, that sounds even more crazy, the one that tells you… -Quit your job and open a bakery, though your baking experience is buying the chocolate cake from Costco -While out for a walk, tells you to turn right down a street, taking a route you’ve never taken before in your neighborhood and meeting your new best friend -Order the special of the day and realize that you love the barramundi fish. You research the fish and talk to the guy behind the counter at the grocery store about it. You buy it. You cook it. You research more recipes. You find a fishery that specializes in destination/local food tourism. You happen to be going there for a work conference so you stop in. Then 10 years later you have bought the fishery and use the business and the land and the funds to build back the rainforests in the Amazon. Or you’ve bought the fishery and write screenplays about Australian kookaburas and bandicoots that Disney-Pixar buys for $6 million.

Okay maybe that last one is a stretch…(and guess who just learned about the barramundi fish not too long ago?)

BUT, I imagine most people could look back on their lives and find that random inkling that they had turned into something larger and more important than they first imagined.

That’s the still small voice.

It’s always there – we always have access to it – it’s always telling us what to do next.

Here’s the tough question: Do we listen to the still small voice?

The definition of the word listen from American-Heritage Dictionary via Google:

One: To make an effort to hear something. Two: To pay attention; heed. Three: To give close attention with the purpose of hearing; to give ear; to hearken; to attend.

Listening is not just hearing.

How many things do you hear (and subsequently block out) in a day? In a week? In a year?

The Still Small Voice is not the TV news, the book club pick, your Instagram or tick tock feed. It is like the smoke alarm in a building, cutting through everything to get attention and keep everyone safe.

Except it doesn’t work like a smoke alarm, the still small voice will let everything else in the world drown it out.

So we have to listen, make an effort and pay attention to it and maybe as the definition says “attend” to it. When it speaks, let it sink in and possibly do something with it.

The Still Small Voice is always there inside of you, letting you know what is best for you, protecting you from danger and putting you where you need to be for the good stuff in life. It’s up to us as individuals to really listen for the voice, pay attention and start the dialogue just like you would with someone you just met.

I am seeing many more people turning back into and toward their Still Small Voice. It heartens me that as a society we are moving away, not just from materialism (because that's not the problem) but unconsciousness.

However, I'm noticing that this “Listen to yourself, listen to the voice inside” is still coming with a heavy dose of:

1) Here's how to listen. Here's what you do. How has your experience been? What do you hear? (PS: Answering questions is not listening.)

2) Marketing Malarkey. Interior wisdom cannot be sold or bought.

So what is really going on?

First, good things. Everyone is burning out on the “this is how you should do this” junk. It didn't work for everyone before. It's not going to work now. Now there is more, “this is what worked for me but here's what to think about.”

Second (and may not be positive depending on their intentions), many people are pivoting their platforms to this “new knowledge”. They may have had a change in heart and intention and are being honest going for it. I'm happy to listen.

But for many, this is the next thing in the line of food, books, organizing, painting, coaching, mason jar salads, cupcakes and meditation.

All of those things are fine. It's just that the Still Small Voice is not a commodity. It's not a trend like pancake cereal or the newest Krispy Kreme doughnut collaboration.

There are many out there who have been honest and open and focused on being authentic and real from the get go. There are many who are pivoting now.

Some will say, I don't care where/how I learn it from as long as I learn it.

I disagree – I want to read about knowledge and wisdom from an honest source. And I find most of those sources have been doing this from their get go. I assure you they don't have the million likes and probably aren't going viral on YouTube and Tick-Tock (is that even how you spell it?)

One's own inner wisdom cannot be commodified. You can share and tell stories – but you cannot sell it. And there's a lot of people “selling” out there.

Be careful – listen to your own Still Small Voice. And call bullshit when you see it.

I have a simple goal.

To write about The Still Small Voice.

The Still Small Voice that is within every single person.

And I feel the irony in writing about The Still Small Voice on the internet.

The Still Small voice is not found in the internet (or on social media, or in text chains or phone calls.)

But The Still Small Voice does respond and have things to say about all of those things – which is why I'm here.

And why I'm here simply – on a simple platform – because I've found that The Still Small Voice likes to make things simpler. In all ways.

Like most, I have complicated my life multiple times over, only to realize, in the thick of the crazy that all I want, desire and need is the simple.

But I always, always take something back into my simple rest from the complicated things and experiences I created. I am a different person each time.

The Still Small Voice calls me to grow and expand, yet still stay true to myself within that growth and expansion.

The Still Small Voice is you at your fullest, most complete, most pure, most actualized, most peaceful and energetic self.

The Still Small Voice does not categorize or file or standardize. The Still Small Voice is comfortable holding and being contradictions.

The Still Small Voice is beyond our human understanding. Thank God – because he/she/they definitely know more about us and the world than all of us will ever know combined.

The Still Small Voice is higher knowledge, understanding and consciousness. And I always need more of that. All the time.

Don't we all?