Hisbodedus.

The weird little word that's opened my world.

Have you ever had a quirky habit you assumed was uniquely yours and kinda odd? Only to find out it has a name and is a legit thing?

That was me last week when I heard about something called “hisbodedus” which is defined this way:

A simple and personal form of Jewish meditation/prayer where you speak out loud in a place where no one can hear you. Stream of consciousness, making connections and asking for assistance.

Without knowing this practice had been around for – oh, over 200 years – I’ve been instinctively doing it as a variation on the silent meditation I do as part of my Reiki practice.

I lie in my living room wearing an eye mask and just talk out loud. I make connections as I’m monologuing between things. It’s verbal processing without a process. Or an audience. The rabbi who popularized it imagined God as the listener. I imagine myself an hour from now as the audience. Yearning for clarity about stuff I’m figuring out.

Sometimes I voice note the whole thing to reassure my brain that all’s being captured so it can keep the improv going without needing to slow down and be a stenographer.

What I love about this practice – whether you call it hisbodedus or something else – is that it flies directly in the face of society’s penchant for externalizing wisdom. We turn to books, therapists, podcasts, friends, psychics, and anyone but ourselves to ask for sign posts on our journey. And each of these resources has a role, for sure. Yet the most reliable GPS is not out there. It’s the ultimate inside job: only we know what our truest truth is.

A coaching client recently bemoaned that she “should” be doing meditation but hates sitting in silence. I invited her to put her own spin on being with herself in any way that feels natural and good. Morning pages, silent meditation, walking meditation, visualizations, yoga — it all counts and can be customized a thousand different ways. Do it in the bathtub. The car. As you cook dinner. I confessed my practice and my client said “Woah, I could actually see myself doing that.”

What do you do for mental clarity? What could you actually see yourself doing?

Until next time, remember that creativity knows no bounds.