Ragged Edge of Silence: Chapter Three

I am making slow work of The Ragged Edge of Silence. Today I read chapter three, "Life in a Journal." John Francis, the author, was inspired early in life to start keeping journals by a dentist who became his mentor. I have on occasion tried to keep a journal, but until I started blogging, I never sustained it. I kept this blog regularly for a year and am now keeping my dadding one going. Like Francis, I have found my journal is a "gateway to the unconscious and to inner life." I often find that I discover meaning as the words unfold on the screen before me.

However, it is how he used his journal to interact with others that made me restart reading this book and try to follow the lessons he provided. He would take his journal to town and listen to the compliments and criticisms, and because he had chosen to not speak, he realized he was truly listening to others for the first time in his life. He was not listening to form an argument. He was not listening to interrupt, He was just listening, and in doing so he was hearing people fully. This passage struck me deeply. I have often not listened well to people, and it is something with which I continue to struggle. It was this passage that resonated with a truth I needed to hear and had been spoken to me before in ways I couldn't hear quite as well. I am glad I have read it again, and I have now copied that section and posted it above my computer screen so I can see it regularly.