Listening, Flow and Change

Listening opens us to change article by Sandra Cosentino


“Listening does not take place unless you are willing to be changed.
Otherwise, you are just waiting for an opening to talk.”
Alan Alda, National Public Radio interview, February 4, 2005


Do you hear a voice whispering in the background of your busy life that seems to be calling you to some mystery?

Subtle but always there, that voice you sense is somehow your real essence. If we really let the voice of our soul and its connection to the universe flow into us, what would happen?

What blocks our knowingness, which if heard, may lead to bold expression of innate creativity? Who is this guarded inner critic that is afraid to Listen?

Afraid to change, we keep oh so busy, unwilling to hear the voice of our dreams, the perspective of another person, the song of the bird who comes near us, or the wake up call coming from Mother Earth as she shifts her axis and magnetic poles and weather patterns.


Sentient Universe Gives us Nudges

Physics reveal we are part of an expanding, dynamic universe.  Every cell of our body is directly connected to the these flowing energies. Systems that are closed will build up pressure for release and change.

Earth-spirit based cultures know we live in a sentient universe that responds to our observation, our thoughts, our energies. We know that when we listen to the messages constantly coming to us from our body, nature, friends, society, we make shifts. We become more fluid and wave like, less contracted. This sets off our inner alarm and can take us into resistance, avoidance.

Humans are uniquely gifted with conscious ability to witness ourselves and create change, yet we so often limit this gift to what our logical, domesticated mind can conceive and control. We ignore the other ways of perceiving and direct knowing our animal friends so eloquently use all the time.

Each animal species has a group soul, a dynamic energetic that is freely offered to us humans to enlarge our energy field and abilities, yet we don’t invite that wisdom in. We fear being in the wild places they inhabit on the landscape and in our inner world.

Medicine animals in popular literature have been reduced to symbolic definitions so that even if we are open to their presence in our lives, we limit their expression by being overly defining. We miss the humor, the surprising variety of ways they reveal profound wisdom to us in our dreams, meditations and instant knowing. And even more importantly, they bring us direct energetic vibrations that help us release heavy energies and raise our frequency.

Healing can flow from contact with Universal Source energies which restores our balance and perspective. When our minds block flow and we quit listening, our bodies often grab our attention by developing symptoms that force us to listen–calling us back to our bigger cosmic blueprint. The cells of our bodies are never disconnected from Source. Like our medicine animal friends, our body is a true and loyal friend.


The inner mystic is awakening in Western culture calling us back to a place of connectedness to spontaneous life and aliveness.

Many people in the modern world are responding to a voice that calls them to pilgrimage to landscapes that evoke awe and expanded awareness.  These charged places can renew our energies and awaken new potentialities if we take time to tune in.

Being willing to listen, and hence change, can activate movement in our life. Standing on the edge of a new becoming,  fears arise. Just as listening does not occur without being willing to change, living your truth does not take place unless you are willing to reveal yourself, to risk disapproval, to move from passive to active mode.

So when you are right there at that edge place moving into unfamiliar terrain, welcome the fear and use its energy as adrenalin to charge your awareness. For example, if you were in a wilderness with big predators, to survive you have to pay attention, heighten your awareness, and be fully present in the moment.

Consider what might happen in your life if:

you began listening to the voice of your soul that is whispered on the wind, radiating from the stars, reflected to you in inner responses to people in your life, expressed in body language such as gut tightening or heart opening, or in the dream of the eagle pecking on our head calling you to go fly and get the bigger picture of who you really are and of your vast potent-reality.

posted April 7, 2005; updated March 3, 2008 and January 4, 2017

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