On being accompanied

Who accompanies you on your life journey? There are the obvious people -- family, and friends, mostly, and then there are the people who really listen. If you're extremely fortunate, you have family and friends who really listen. But sometimes it takes an outsider to help us to "discover the cause and meaning" of the things that set us back on our heels. Do you have someone like that?

I'm really fortunate in that I have several wonderful accompaniers who listen to me sort myself out on a regular basis. The reason having someone listen is important is that sometimes, if no one is listening, a thought that leads to a personal breakthrough is never completed. So I appreciate the fact that my family (parents, sisters and husband) are good listeners. Then there are the perceptive friends who are able to hear the things behind what's being said and ask the right questions to help me figure things out for myself. I'm also blessed to have a sharp spiritual director who is such a good listener that it's frightening. I drive home from sessions with him just shaking my head a lot of the time because he hits so many nails on the head!

And even as I am accompanied by all these wonderful people, I am accompanying some of them... and my own children. It's hard, sometimes, "to meet them where they are and not to judge them on the basis of an ideal or of what I think they ought to become," but I am doing my best to be a good listener and turn off the judgmental voices in my head so that they can put their hopes, difficulties and needs into words. It is critical to be able to voice those things in a safe place, to be heard and loved so that we can grow.

Who accompanies you on your life journey? And whom do you accompany?