Just Listen - Hardcover

O'Hara, Nancy

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0767900227 ISBN 13: 9780767900225

Publisher: Broadway, 1997

Synopsis

Tune in to the voice of your inner spirit.

In her bestselling book, Find a Quiet Corner, Nancy O'Hara showed readers how to find serenity through meditations.  Now, in Just Listen, she introduces the next step on the journey to inner peace and shows how to cut through the clutter of your mind, quiet the chorus of distracting voices, and reduce stress and anxiety so you can tap into your inner self.  This wise and inspiring book will help you discover what you really want from life and find the courage to pursue your dreams.

Adapting Zen principles and practices to modern-day life, O'Hara takes you step-by-step through an entire process of meditations, simple exercises, and questions to clear your busy mind and make you more aware, self-accepting, and active in living a satisfying life.  Sitting still and breathing, writing thoughts on paper, letting down barriers, and moving your body all combine to improve spiritual progress, empower relationships, and remove the psychological obstacles that hold you back.  This gentle process will teach you to release negativity, understand and face your fears, establish good habits, reach out to others, take risks, and rediscover your true self.

An insightful guide that takes you on an enlightening and empowering personal journey, Just Listen will help you to hear your one true voice and show you how to live a life that joyfully reflects it.  

About this title

About the Author

Nancy O'Hara worked in publishing and bookselling for more than fourteen years.  Her first book, Find a Quiet Corner, was a national bestseller.  A full time writer, she currently conducts Quiet Corner workshops in and around New York City, where she lives.

From the Inside Flap

he voice of your inner spirit.

In her bestselling book, Find a Quiet Corner, Nancy O'Hara showed readers how to find serenity through meditations. Now, in Just Listen, she introduces the next step on the journey to inner peace and shows how to cut through the clutter of your mind, quiet the chorus of distracting voices, and reduce stress and anxiety so you can tap into your inner self. This wise and inspiring book will help you discover what you really want from life and find the courage to pursue your dreams.

Adapting Zen principles and practices to modern-day life, O'Hara takes you step-by-step through an entire process of meditations, simple exercises, and questions to clear your busy mind and make you more aware, self-accepting, and active in living a satisfying life. Sitting still and breathing, writing thoughts on paper, letting down barriers, and moving your body all combine to improve spiritual progress, empow

Reviews

O'Hara (Find A Quiet Corner, Warner, 1995) runs Quiet Corner workshops in New York City. On the basis of her life experiences, she believes that finding serenity is not enough?that we also need to hear our true inner voices. This book represents her attempt to guide readers to that goal. She describes various ways of becoming aware, accepting, and taking action. O'Hara's ideas are basic, and the text is tepid. Much of it revolves around quiet-time thinking and preparing various writing exercises. Readers would do better with any of M. Scott Peck's "road" books (e.g., The Road Less Traveled). Recommended only where there is demand.?January Adams, Franklin Twp. P.L., Somerset, N.J.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Situating Yourself: What Is Our Purpose Here?  

Like everyone else, you probably are searching for something in this life to satisfy a dream, a longing, or something that you can't even name.  As you begin to read this book you may even have an agenda for yourself.  Perhaps you're looking for answers to the gnawing questions in your brain about what your role in this life is.  And perhaps you're looking for some serenity, a little peace of mind that will at least temporarily take you away from your troubles.  Maybe you've tried other things to help you gain this peace and nothing has worked, so you're skeptical that anything can work.  

Perhaps you've reached some measure of peace in your life and want to go deeper.  You want to experience more joy.  You want to experience your life more fully, and you want to achieve an emotional balance so that the highs and lows of life are moderated.  

Or maybe you're committed to the pursuit of happiness at any cost, or to acquiring things like money and power because you believe that these will give you joy and freedom.  

Perhaps you don't even know what you want--you just know that something is amiss, something needs to happen inside you because no matter what happens to and around you there is no satisfaction.  Maybe you have everything you've ever dreamed of--the compatible relationship, the satisfying job, the nice home, plenty of love from children and family--yet something inside feels empty.  You might even hesitate to acknowledge this empty feeling, thinking that your friends and family wouldn't believe you or would consider you ungrateful.  

Perhaps you believe you have a fatal flaw that nothing and nobody can correct, and up to this point in your life you've kept it your secret.  Or maybe you're sitting with a minor under-the-skin-dis-ease, something you can live with but that colors the way you see everything.  It's not extreme, mostly it goes unnoticed by others, but it's beginning to affect your behavior more and more.  You're simply fed up with it and want it gone.  

Right now, try not to figure any of this out, and don't worry about where or whether you fit in to any of these scenarios.  Simply know that wherever you are coming from and wherever you think you might want to go, you are, right this moment, in the right place.  Know that whatever you think your purpose in life or your purpose in reading this book is, you are, right this moment, in the right place.  

Let's make a pact.  Let's agree that for now our purpose is to be present and willing, right here, right now.  To this end, let's do a simple exercise.  Look around you.  What does the room you're in look like?  Are there windows?  Notice the source of light.  What shoes are you wearing?  Are you standing or sitting?  How's your breathing?  Take three long, deep breaths to put your attention there.  Look around you again.  Ground yourself in the here and now.  Focus on just being where you are, right now, in this moment.  Breathe deeply.  

This exercise is a simple one, and I will ask you to remember it and turn to it from time to time.  Let's call it your purpose tool.  Whenever you find yourself fearful or anxious, use this tool.  Whenever the question "What is my purpose?"  arises, use this tool.  Whenever you are in a state of existential angst, use this tool.  Whenever you don't know what to do next, use this tool.  

You may be asking yourself such questions as "Why?  What good will this do me?  How can such a simple exercise help with the important matters of my life?"  Take a moment.  Stop.  Use your purpose tool.  If you practice this regularly and follow the other suggestions in this book, I promise that you will find the answers to even your most perplexing questions.  But for now let's agree that our purpose is to be here, on this page, in this moment, and nowhere else.  That is enough purpose just now.  Read along, trust, and bring this tool with you as you go.  


Choices

Nothing is either fully black or white except maybe black and white.  As soon as we open our eyes to each new morning, we are faced with a day of choices--which side of the bed to roll out of, which body part to wash first when we shower, what to have for breakfast.  As the days and years pass we make bigger choices for ourselves--where to go to school, whom to marry, how many children to have.  And in between the small and the big choices are a multitude of other choices we face that influence our life and our character.  Some of our choices evolve into habit and we stop thinking about them.  For instance, take the first three that I mentioned: getting out of bed, showering, eating breakfast.  Do you ever think about these things and make a conscious choice?  Or do you slip into your habitual routine and coast on automatic pilot?  Here, in the small choices we face every day, we can learn to practice awareness, acceptance, and  mindfulness.  Here we can begin to learn to take  responsibility for ourselves.  Here we can begin to understand how much of the noise in our head is there by our own choosing.  As we become mindful and pay attention to each choice we make, we slowly become aware of our own investment in our difficulties.  We learn how we need certain people and noises around us even though we know they interfere with our serenity.  We learn how subtle some of our choices and the effects of those choices are.  

If you haven't already become aware of it, notice that paradoxes are inherent in much of what is being discussed in this book.  Mainly, letting go versus taking responsibility and making choices.  You might be asking yourself how you can let go and make a choice at the same time.  This question is appropriate and valid.  But remember that without your participation in your own life you merely become an automaton.  Unless you take responsibility for your choices, you will not sit squarely in your life, in the essence of who you are.  This is a difficult concept to grasp, but you must make the choice, then let go, and allow your breath to enter the picture and take that choice to its natural conclusion.  If you are directing the outcome, you will not be open for anything but your own narrow vision.  If you ask for help and let your God in, your world will get bigger.  

One thing to remember about choice is that no choice is also a choice, so if you do nothing, you are choosing to do nothing and must take responsibility for the ramifications of that choice.  So review your day and think about some of the choices you made today.  How many of them were made mindlessly?  Can you think of one you made that you'd like to go back and change?  Before you made it, did you take a moment to breathe and listen?  As you breathe quietly, review your day and think about your preferred choices.  What are you learning?  Write about it.  

We are continually faced with choices, and, luckily for us, this will never change.  Some choices, of course, are more difficult to make than others.  Practicing on the small ones will prepare you for the big ones.  The best that you can do for yourself is to be aware of your choices and, as much as possible, the effects of each choice.  Breathe deeply before deciding.  Ask for guidance.  Listen for the answer.  And then choose.  Then let go and live with the results.  It will always be a perfect choice.  Don't second-guess yourself.  Move on to the next and the next and the next.  Live fully in your life each moment.  Trust your choices, and accept the results.  


Crazy Choices

For one week, pay attention to the small choices you are faced with and choose to do the opposite of what you'd normally do.  Beginning each morning, roll out of bed on a different side.  Eat before you shower, or vice versa.  Eat something you don't normally eat.  Take a bath instead of a shower.  Wash your body from the bottom up or from the middle down.  Change it each day.  Continue through your day making "crazy" choices.  At the end of each day, write about the day's experiences, the choices you made.  How did you feel when you made them?  How do you feel as you write about them?  Notice anything different about yourself, about your day?  What awarenesses arose?  How does your body feel?  Your heart?  Your brain?  Was it fun, or confusing and disconcerting?  Why do you think you are reacting the way you are?  Write about all of that.  And remember to breathe deeply.  


Trust Yourself

For one week, take note of some of the more difficult choices you face.  If a decision can wait a day, spend the evening writing and meditating on it before choosing.  If not, take a few moments, go for a walk if you can, pay attention to your breath, and ask for guidance.  Trust yourself.  Then go back and choose.  Write about it that same night, o...

Edition details

• Publisher: Broadway
• Publication date: 1997
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0767900227
• ISBN 13: 9780767900225
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 288