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Transcript

Are You Listening to Your Life? · The Daily Writer

• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the Daily Rider Podcast, where we bring you tips and inspiration each day to help you build habits for writing success.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: For more resources, including your free Daily Rider Starter Kit, visit DailyWriterlife.com.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_00: The author and teacher Parker Palmer wrote a profound little book a number of years ago called Let Your Life Speak.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_00: And in the book, he writes this Before I can tell my life what I want to do with it, I must listen to my life telling me who I am.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: What does it mean exactly to listen to your life?
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_00: I think that it means paying attention to the signposts telling you where you should go.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it's kind of amazing that sometimes we don't see the signs that life is giving to us.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_00: We don't see those signs right in front of us.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_00: Now, those signs can take different shapes, such as what your gut is telling you, what you're passionate about, and where you're having success in your life.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_00: And all those things are indicators, I believe, of what you should be doing with your life.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_00: But one of the most important signs, however, it comes from other people.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: Are there people in your life who have encouraged you in your writing?
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's teachers, parents, coaches, pastor, youth minister, or friend.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_00: If so, this is a sure sign that you need to be leaning into writing.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: Now, if you haven't had that happen and maybe nobody in your life has encouraged your writing, don't stress about it.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_00: There's no worries.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_00: It might be that you've simply not shared your writing with enough other people for them to validate you and your gift.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, there is a sense in which you can't keep it hidden.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you've got to tell people this is what you wanted.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_00: You've got to put stuff out there so people know this is what you want to do, and so they can validate this direction in your life.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_00: Now, even further down that extreme, maybe you've had the unfortunate experience of having people be critical and dismissive of your writing.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_00: If so, I want you to understand this.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_00: Anybody who criticizes you without a loving spirit is doing so with the wrong kind of attitude.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_00: They're just not being helpful.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: Most of the time, other people's criticism is driven by jealousy and a lack of affirmation in their own life.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_00: As the saying goes, hurting people hurt people.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_00: And I think, especially when it comes to people who criticize others on a regular basis, like we all know people who are just kind of negative and they criticize others all the time, and that's kind of their general outlook on life.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_00: Those people don't understand that criticizing somebody never actually changes their behavior.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_00: You know, even if you know that you're wrong, when somebody criticizes you or talks negatively to you, that only kind of it only kind of drives you further into that behavior, even if you know it's bad behavior.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_00: That's just, we're kind of wired in a weird psychological way that that way for some reason.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so criticism never really actually works, does it?
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: You know, if you criticize somebody in your life, hey, you did this and I didn't like it, or you're you're bad and you need to shape up or ship out or whatever we say.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: If you look at your experience, that never actually works, does it?
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_00: And it's the same thing with you and I.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_00: Whenever people have criticized us and are mean to us, it never actually improves us.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_00: So if you have somebody in in your life who's been critical toward you like that, particularly with your writing, and they haven't done so with the right kind of spirit and with trying to really be helpful, then don't listen to that person.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_00: They're just full of it.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_00: You can move on.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_00: Well, the point of all this is to watch out for the signposts around you.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes those signposts come in the form of critical people who are pointing us in like an opposite direction.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes it comes in the form of loving people and people who want the best for us who are affirming in the direction that we need to go.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_00: Both people can actually be helpful in your life.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_00: Obviously, we prefer the ones who are nice, but sometimes the ones who are not nice can be really helpful to us as well.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_00: So I want you to just think about those things.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_00: Listen to your life, pay attention to the signs that life is giving to you.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_00: And in fact, that's today's challenge.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_00: What signposts in your life are pointing you to dive deeper into your writing?
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_00: I bet there are there's more than one if you just start to pay attention.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_00: You know, life can teach us a lot if we just slow down and we pause and we're we're calm.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_00: We get into a space that we feel calm and we just observe.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_00: If we just stop and observe, we'll notice an awful lot of things in life that life is trying to tell us.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_00: And I want to encourage you to do that.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_00: So stop and and listen for those signs, look for those signs.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_00: And in particular, pay attention to those people who are trying to help you.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and hang on to them because they're worth their weight and gold.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_00: All right, my friend, as always, thanks for listening.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_00: And by the way, I try to be one of those people for you.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_00: You know, sometimes we go through periods in our life, just a little side note, sometimes we go through these periods where things just aren't going so well.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_00: And it seems like sometimes nothing is going well.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_00: Everything's going wrong.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_00: If nothing else, you can always tune into this podcast.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_00: You know it comes out every single day.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_00: You can always depend on me trying to give you something that's going to lift you up every single day.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_00: I really try to be that for you and your life.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_00: So if nobody else believes in your writing, if nobody else is encouraging you with that, if nobody else is telling you that you can do it, I promise you, I will be here to try and help you to understand you can do it.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_00: I believe in you.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_00: I know that you have skills and talents that the world needs to hear.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_00: Why do I believe that?
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_00: Because you're human.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_00: And because I believe that, I want to try and encourage you to get out there and share your stuff with the world.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_00: I promise there's somebody who needs what you have.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_00: I promise you.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_00: So get out there and do it.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_00: Let's get to it.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_00: And uh, hey, today's Monday.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_00: So I hope this is a great beginning to your week.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_00: And with that said, I will see you tomorrow.