Art Of Awakening True Communication (eBook)

A Guide To Cultivating Clarity, Compassion & Connection

Nancy Jill Sundberg (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2025 | 1. Auflage
124 Seiten
Bookbaby (Verlag)
979-8-3178-1523-3 (ISBN)

Infos

Discover an empowered approach to navigating the labyrinth of your mind and heart. Drawing inspiration from the complexity and innate humor of our daily interactions, explore this practical guide that will transform the way you communicate-and the world around you-through self-inquiry and self-knowledge. From learning to discern and process negativity snowballs, waves of emotion, and internal monologues to exploring principles of interconnectedness, attention and intention, and cause and effect, each chapter moves the reader from their interior world to the exterior and back. The author shares personal stories, teachings for the mind and heart, and self-observation exercises to experiment with and illuminate the principles set forth. Learn to better understand yourself, your communication, and your relationships, and explore the inherent potential for communication to transform our world.

Nancy Jill Sundberg is a writer and teacher of self-knowledge. Her passion for communication began as an actor and stand-up comedian and evolved into the creation of Stand Up Express-an adult and youth program to facilitate artistic self-expression. Nancy spent over 20 years in spiritual contemplation, meditation, and service alongside her mother Ngeton, a wisdom teacher in the spiritual lineage of the Navnath Sampradaya. As Ngeton's successor, Nancy's teachings are rooted in love, wisdom, joy, and clarity. Nancy has recently published her debut work, 'The Art Of Awakening True Communication,' which offers foundational elements of Nancy's teachings on expanding self-knowledge through observation, honesty, and willingness to an ever-growing audience.

Textauszug

INTRODUCTION
Awakening True Communication

Communication is universal. It’s something we all do in one way or another, effectively or ineffectively, in clarity or confusion. We express ourselves. We affect each other. Sometimes deeply. We often gauge success or failure based on the outcomes of our interactions. Sometimes we just barrel through interactions without thinking about what we are communicating. We create suffering as well as joy.

This book was inspired by an experience with a loved one who was absolutely triumphant in combining the elements of self-reflection, inquiry, and clear communication. My niece.

She and I are very close and have a relationship built on trust and openness. We also have an excellent rapport when it comes to discussing spiritual teachings and deepening self-knowledge. She was in a situation with her new boss in which she felt railroaded into taking a different position than the one she was hired for. There was a complexity to the situation because she also felt that her boss was emotionally manipulating her, which led to her feeling overwhelmed and confused. Because my niece had acquired good skills for self-observation, she was able to bring awareness to her emotional distress and also ascertain an overall view of the situation. We started by cutting through and eliminating the ideas that were irrelevant to the situation and her pending communication. We discussed and broke down some of the elements communicated by her boss that warranted a response from her. We clarified what she wanted and needed in the situation, along with what her boss also wanted and needed. We also addressed her fears and anxieties about communicating with him directly.

By reflecting on her boss’s communication and her own, we were able gain insight into some of the dynamics involved. After a very thorough consideration, she whittled it down and came to a simple and clear set of ideas and requests that she was ready to communicate.

The next day, she went to work, requested a time to speak with her boss, and was able to articulately and effectively express herself. Her communication was empowered. She was clear. She spoke respectfully and honestly. The outcome was exactly what she had intended. She had reflected upon and wrestled with her emotional roadblocks and, with her own clarity in place, expressed herself in the face of both emotional manipulation and a significant power differential. Though clear communication doesn’t always result in a desired outcome, self-reflection and awareness are their own reward.

Nine months after her communication with her boss, she applied for a management position and was promoted. She excelled in all of her interviews. Her boss and the management team were very impressed with her interviewing skills. Shortly after her promotion, she became his right-hand employee.

Success in work and other areas of life is just one of the positive outcomes of being a clear communicator. She gained something else in this situation, too: she understood more about herself. She strengthened her self-knowledge. Through developing self-awareness, she deepened her inner strength and created a strong foundation for communicating with others.

The day my niece called to tell me what happened in that initial successful conversation with her boss, I was inspired and started to write. What I wanted to share was simple in theory—and may not always be simple in practice. But the pay-off of making the effort to better understand ourselves and become more skillful communicators is immense. We can use communication and relationships as fuel for awakening our authenticity. Authenticity is fuel for connection with others.

I hope that reading this book allows you to make connections in your own life through some of the experiences and insights that I share. I hope you laugh a little when you think about the complexities, absurdities, and delights of communicating with your friends, family, colleagues, and loved ones. And I hope it inspires your own unique capacity for exploration, self-reflection, and maybe even a sense of adventure in navigating the landscape of self-knowledge and communication.

My Journey

As a child, I used to listen to fairytale records and voice all of the characters in the story exactly as I heard them. I memorized the entirety of “Snow White” and acted out all of the characters. This fueled my early inspiration and love for communication through the performing arts. I did my first play in the sixth grade and performed all through high school and college, where I earned my BA in Theatre.

In my 30s, I moved to New York to study acting and dance. I also did stand-up comedy, which I loved and found very challenging. There is never a gray area regarding success and failure in stand-up. Laughter means success and silence means failure. My first comedy performance was thrilling. The audience laughed and cheered my name. The next night I eagerly did the same material for a different audience and totally bombed. What?! How? Why?!

Although comedy was sometimes terrifying and always challenging, I couldn’t stop. I loved making people laugh. I got absorbed in the process, relishing laughter and learning to accept silence or even audible groans. I became obsessed with understanding the dynamics of self-expression and communication in the arts, and eventually in everyday life. It was and still is a journey of discovery.

A couple of years after I moved to New York, my oldest brother Randy was killed in a hit-and-run car accident. He was 39. This was a major turning point in my life. I was sitting outside the funeral home in my mother’s car, alone, waiting for her to finish some last minute details inside. As I looked at the box of his ashes in my lap, I sobbed with disbelief. Facing death and the unavoidable reality of impermanence ignited something in me.

After my brother’s funeral on Maui, which is home for my family, I returned to New York and resumed my performing and studying. But I felt empty. Simultaneously, and unexpectedly, being so laid bare and deeply vulnerable, I had significant breakthroughs in acting. I progressed in stand-up as well and was given opportunities to perform in new talent showcases and hone my skills as a professional emcee. Despite the thrill of opportunity and performing—although at times it was gratifying—it didn’t feel very meaningful. I was also exhausting myself in the lifestyle I had created. I was working as a bartender, taking three to four dance classes a week, and doing stand-up at night. Add in regular acting classes and the occasional audition and…Whew! I was tired.

I found myself longing to go home and be near my mother and family. I also missed Maui. I would think about the gentle winds and the warm beautiful ocean that is so nurturing and healing. For me, Maui feels like the heart of the earth, and every time I leave the island and return, as soon as the airplane wheels touch the ground, my eyes fill with tears of gratitude and my heart feels the peace of being home. When my mother made her first trip to Maui, many years ago, as soon as she stepped off of the plane, she knew that she was home. A few years after her first visit, she managed to move all of us kids to Maui.

I left New York and returned home.

My mother, Ngeton (pronounced Naytone), was teaching as requested by her Guru, Jean Dunn. Ngeton succeeded her in carrying on the teachings in the Spiritual Lineage of the Navnath Sampradaya, which originated in India. The word Sampradaya means an established teaching that is propagated from master to disciple. Historically, teachers traveled on foot from village to village propagating the teachings until they were no longer able to. If one or more disciples were ready, they would be asked to carry on the teachings. Over the years, Ngeton traveled to California and other places to teach and eventually began offering quarterly retreats in Maui. She had a group of very dedicated students, which included me. One retreat weekend, someone brought up my brother’s death, and eventually the dialogue settled around the idea of my mother’s death.

Without thinking, I blurted: “Well, I better be totally enlightened before that happens!” At the time, I think that I had an idea that if I were enlightened, whatever that meant, then somehow I would become immune to the experience of loss.

Immediately after I said that, Ngeton looked at me. The power of her presence and love pierced something deep within me. Fear. I felt and experienced so much fear at the mere thought of her dying that I trembled as tears streamed down my face. My body shook as I tried to catch my breath. Our eyes never parted or diverted.

Her gaze, and her love, was constant.

I began to sob uncontrollably. I was overwhelmed by the sheer power of the energy moving within me. There were no thoughts. No ideas about what was happening. No stopping it. Just feeling. Everything. Then something happened: In an instant, the fear was gone. I popped out of the other side of the energy of fear into deep stillness. Peace.

I was only aware. I was quiet inside. I was relaxed. I was awake to something that was beyond my thoughts, feelings, and emotions. I didn’t have any words at the time. I only knew that I didn’t feel like I did...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 12.11.2025
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Sachbuch/Ratgeber ► Gesundheit / Leben / Psychologie ► Esoterik / Spiritualität
• ISBN-13: 979-8-3178-1523-3 / 9798317815233