LISTENING TO INNER SELF CHANGES LIVES
(Excerpted from Garden State Woman)
Author Ferida Wolff has seen whole lives change through a process to which everyone has access, the simple act of listening. Her book, Listening Outside Listening Inside, published by Universal Vision, explores ways of listening to the inner messages we receive and recognizing their outer reflections. The warm, compassionate, personal stories help readers tune into their own listening.
"We all have stories to tell," says Ms. Wolff. "They come from our daily living and have profound meaning for us if we allow ourselves to hear what they have to say."
Ms. Wolff is an experienced listener. For over twenty-five years, she was both student and teacher of Yoga, a system based on listening: to the breath, to the body, to the mind, and to the spirit. She also is certified in Holistic Studies and Reflexology, is initiated into first degree Reiki, practices Acupressure, Therapeutic Touch, Qi Gong, and Tai Chi. A student of Kabbalah as well, she explores her experience of truth through a broad perspective.
"I use all of these practices," says Ms. Wolff, "but I do not lock myself into one because they all work through the inter-connectedness of life energy. We are now in a period of human development that requires us to reclaim personal responsibility and power; inner listening gives us the ability to draw from all systems for our greatest good."
In Listening Outside Listening Inside, Ms Wolff shares a variety of ways of tuning into our inner wisdom. She says that listening, while it comes from stillness and is natural and simple, is anything but a passive activity. We are rewarded for the effort with a clearer understanding of the direction of our lives as well as a sense of peace and harmony within a universal perspective.
During her years as a journalist, Ms. Wolff wrote articles on subjects ranging from the arts to zazen. More recently, she has been writing books for young people, often on themes that encourage new ways of looking at one's world.