#ConnectionHeals
By 4Roots Method and Wellness Director Nancy Minges
Feeling heard and hearing ourselves—while being held in community—helps us heal and bring more compassion and kindness into the world through our own individual song.
The most beautiful aching work of this world is to be yourself.
-Yevgeny Yevtushenko
A mindful listening circle—a caring space that offers a couple of breaths, empathy, and attunement in response—is an amazing portal for deepening into our own individual being and to be nourished in community by the bread and butter of kindness.
Listening circles are a ritual we hold every week in conjunction with various ongoing programs at our 4Roots Youth Wellness Center. Each participant has a chance to unburden whatever is on their chest—the highs, the lows, and the “nothing reallys.” These circles make the world of difference in daily life and keep us in connection. During the pandemic, they were crucial for us to overcome the isolation, bringing the comfort of togetherness and a steady light on even the darkest of days.
Feeling heard and hearing ourselves in the container of community grows new pathways of wholeness in that “aching, and beautiful work of being ourselves.” It opens our hearts and minds, to help us heal and step forward with the support of those present as we grapple with what our path asks of us.
Like many rituals, a listening circle helps us make meaning out of our life experiences. To honor loss and be present with our grief. To embrace and celebrate the wins no matter how small, and to water the seeds of new growth. To keep our feet on the ground, deepening into gratitude and source as we reach for the stars. It connects us to our soul and fosters our link with the sacred. It expands our individual capacity for bringing more kindness and compassion into the world.
Let Us Unburden Our Hearts
…The stuff we discussed made me realize I was not the only person who was going through it. It was really nice talking about it with a group of people who could relate… I’ve said things to this group that I have never told anyone before.
—Participant, MBSAT
In her poem titled “Kindness,” Naomi Shihab Nye writes:
Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside, you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing. Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore, only kindness that ties your shoes and sends you out into the day to mail letters and purchase bread.
As winter invites us to drop down and offers time for reflection, we invite you to start a mindful listening circle too, within your family, among your friends, at your school, or with your work group.
May kindness, wholeness, gratitude, honoring loss, and discovering new seeds become the only thing that makes sense anymore to you, too.
If you would like support in starting your own listening circle or ideas for other wellness rituals for yourself or your family, please reach out! We and our students have many to share.