My son, the actor, says this: when someone gives you something (a word, a sentence, a feeling, a breath), receive it fully. Don’t let it just ping off your surface and give a pingy superficial response.
Instead, let the word, or breath, or feeling sink all the way back to your spine. Let it transform you. Then respond from the transformed place.
(If you like this, try it while meditating. It’s like feeling two waves, the first being the usual breath into your lungs, the second being a deeper echo of the first, allowing your breath to reach your spine, to reach deeply into your face, your chest, your pelvis. Then let your exhalation come from the same depth.)
Something funny happens with this deeper receiving and giving. It’s as though we access a truer, more direct version of ourselves rather than acting like pinball machines all day long. (I have had enough pinball conversations for one lifetime.)
You can spot someone who’s doing it, by the way. The eye contact is different.
If this draws you at all, give it a whirl. I’d love to hear how it goes.
Thanks for the conversation,
kristin