I miss the eighties. Not so much the big hair and shoulder pads – I could live without those. I miss the music – everything from Duran Duran to Def Leppard – I love it all. I realize that I could indulge in hair bands and techno pop to my heart’s content with an extra hard drive and an iTunes account. But that always seems to fall to the bottom of my “to-do” list. I end up settling for the random surprise song I’ll hear over a department store’s Muzak system.
And just yesterday I was met with one such wonderful surprise – Icicle Works’ Whisper to a Scream. It’s a great, upbeat little ditty with a profound and haunting chorus.
A whisper to a scream… What a cool phrase – and accurate too. How often do we ignore the whisper? The whisper of our intuition, the whisper of our spouses or children, the whisper of our bodies, the whisper of our souls? Of course that little whisper has no choice but to become a scream – it’s the only way we will listen!
How many times have you wanted a cookie, but ignored the impulse? At best you simply didn’t hear your body’s request. At worst, you heard the request but thought, “No. I’m on a diet – cookies are bad for me.” And then the request comes again – a little louder. And you ignore it again. And this cycle continues until there is so much screaming going on, that you sit down and eat the entire bag of cookies!
Or perhaps the voice you ignore is the whisper asking for that shiny, pretty, inexpensive little bauble. And you ignore it – until you drop a month’s salary on a shopping spree.
You beat yourself up because you think you have no will power. But you’re not “giving in” for lack of will power. You’re doing a very rational thing – you’re quieting the noise!
It’s just so much easier to deal with the whisper instead of the scream. And perhaps that little voice that’s calling to you – whatever it may be – your child, your body, your soul – does indeed need to get a bit louder so that you can hear it more clearly. But listening – truly listening – is one of the greatest skills we can develop. It serves us in all aspects and in all relationships in our lives – not the least of which is our relationship to ourselves.