I am in the car with my father. We are on our way to the coast to spend a couple of days together. I sense that he is seriously ill and that he may not last beyond Christmas: it is now the end of October. I am afraid about this, not because we are very close, but because we are not very close. We have not really communicated, except on a superficial level, for years.
I had asked him to come away with me so that we might talk. I wanted to make my peace with him, there were things I felt I needed to know from him before he was gone forever and time was running out. Normally it was my mother who did most of the talking while my father lived almost silently in his own reclusive world: reading a novel, watching TV or listening to music with his head phones on.
For the first couple of hours on the journey I was asking myself whether this was such a good idea. Our conversation was on the usual superficial level and I wondered if we were going to get on to anything meaningful that I wanted to hear from him.
Suddenly the conversation opened up: he began to talk and didn't stop talking for two whole days. He told me stuff I wanted to know, stuff I'd wondered about and stuff that had never even entered my head. He told me the reasons why he hadn't wanted children and the reasons he'd decided to have them anyway. He told me how it was for him as a child and how it was for him when he had small children of his own. He told me how money had been for him. He told me how much he loved my mother. He told me how much he loved my brother and me and how proud he was of us. He talked about sex. He told me what he was afraid of, what his fears were and what hurt him even after many decades had passed. He told me things that I hold in my heart and cannot share with you or anyone else.
By releasing all the things that he had kept locked up for so long, by communicating openly and honestly, I finally understood so much about him, and about myself, too. By what he communicated, he had freed me, and I hope that in some way he had freed himself.
Following the trip away with my father, I began to think about all of the significant relationships in my life, past and present, and the effects that communication had on them. I reflected on what adults had communicated to us as children, about how my parents had communicated with each other, how I had lost close touch with my brother. I reflected on how, despite there being a great deal of love, so much of my marriage had been nine years of anger, frustration, feeling unloved, lonely and misunderstood, and how this had finally led to divorce. How the business I had co-run for twelve years, although successful, had been an uphill struggle because of how my partner and I communicated with each other, our staff, suppliers and clients.
It seemed that I had been brilliant at saying the wrong thing, at hurting people's deepest feelings, at being misunderstood or misinterpreting what someone was telling me without ever intending to do so.
If my mouth was open, I would put my foot in it. If there was something teeth-jarringly inappropriate to say, I would say it. If there was a way to appear completely uncaring, I would find it.
The two days with my father were a crystallisation of a mystery, the answers to which I had been searching for fifteen years. What I searched for and began to discover are the ‘Secrets of the People Whisperer’. Though I should really say ‘re-discovered’, for although the methods I have found may appear to be totally new, they have always been there, despite remaining largely hidden from many of us.
Communication, whether good or bad, is a huge issue in every area of our lives: in personal, business, family, friendship and intimate relationships. How wonderful and liberating would it be then, to become a highly skilled communicator? A people whisperer? What would it be like to truly understand other people and to be truly understood, to move effortlessly through life with more ease, love, fun and joy?
The answers to these questions are some of the secrets of people whispering; that is, to be aware of what you and other people are communicating on every level, mentally, verbally, physically and spiritually, and to be adept at interacting with kindness, understanding, skill, power and subtlety.
I have been very fortunate in needing to improve my communication skills so badly. I was ‘asking' to learn and, as the saying goes, ‘When the pupil is ready, the teacher appears’. And my teachers did appear.
My master teachers communicate at a very subtle level. They have refined their skills over the last sixty million years to a very high degree and their very survival depends upon it. They do not use words and do not judge; they are noble, quick-witted and very powerful; they sense true intentions, integrity and have an innate sense of justice. These master teachers are horses. When you get your communication wrong with a person, you may end up having an argument or someone sulking. When you get it wrong with half a ton of hyper-sensitive flight animal, you know about it!
I spent a number of years studying some of the great riding masters. I worked training, breeding and starting (breaking in) young horses and developing ways to communicate with these magnificent creatures. As my life and experience with horses expanded, I spent a great deal of time working at the occluded front – where horses and people meet – teaching people to improve their communication with horses and, as an unintended side-effect, helping people to discover how people communicate with themselves.
My experiences of horse whispering led me to see horses as a mirror: they reflect back very clearly whatever it is that you are communicating to them. I then realised that people are, in fact, exactly the same: they also reflect back to you, although sometimes it is difficult to see this because the use of words, judgements, gossip, acting and preconceived notions often act as a smoke-screen.
My work had taken me from horse whispering into people whispering, so to speak. Both require a high degree of self and other-awareness, to know exactly what you are communicating, intentionally or not, at all times and to truly listen to what others are communicating.
Secrets of the People Whisperer will show you simple and incredible ways to connect with your true self, other people and the world at large on many different levels. Through its guidance, you will come to know others and yourself better on physical, mental and energy levels; you will begin to go beyond personality and allow the true ‘being’ within yourself and others to shine through. Ultimately, you will discover how to give every relationship and meeting you ever have the best possible chance of success.
From Secrets of the People Whisperer, copyright 2004 by Perry Wood, published by Rider.
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