January 28 – Wise speech & “TIO”

By | January 28, 2017

Dear Friends,

I’m on retreat right now, and my phone and computer are getting a break too. So enjoy this email in my technical absence. Feel free to post your comments below to share your thoughts with the others also reading this message. I’ll be able to respond to you by Tuesday afternoon.

Yesterday’s email was about mindful listening, but we can (and should) bring mindfulness to our speaking too.

Elisha Goldstein recently shared a post on his Facebook page:

We’ve all put our foot in our mouth at some point, but there are three questions to begin experimenting with to increase mindful communication when saying, texting or messaging anything to family, friends, co-workers or strangers.

Is it true?
Is it necessary?
Is it kind?

Experiment with asking these three throughout the day when interacting with anyone, see what you notice.

There’s a fuller blog post on the topic here:
http://blogs.psychcentral.com/mindfulness/2016/02/before-you-speak-consider-these-words/

I took an online course called Everyday Life as Mindfulness Practice, which is led by Sylvia Boorstein. The 9th session is called “Wise Relationship – Let’s Think It Over”

When it comes to speaking, Sylvia suggests we try

being deliberate about what you are saying.  I tell people that I have this new spiritual practice called TIO.  And they ask, what is that?  I say, often when people ask me, do you want to do this? Do you want to come to this?  Can I interest you in this?  I say, Oh, that sounds very good but I’ll need to talk to you tomorrow.  I have this new spiritual practice.  And they say, Oh, what is your practice?  I say my practice is thinking it over.  That’s actually what mindfulness is.  And you think about: well if in life you thought over from one moment to the next you’d probably be moving very slowly.  But in fact it’s not about moving in a slow way.  It’s about really habituating the mind to know when it’s being thoughtful, when it’s being deliberate, when it’s being wise, and when it’s too confused to do that so it can stop.

So that’s something you can play with today… before you speak: think it over, and reflect: is it true, is it necessary, and is it kind. Notice how it feels when you remember to do this, and notice how it feels when you realized you didn’t TIO first. It’s a practice!

With best wishes,
Andrea