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THE LISTENER'S PATH
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ISSUE NO. 07 · AUGUST, 25 2026 · FIELD DISPATCH
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THIS ISSUE IN BRIEF
◎ Since I was eight years old, at least one person a year has told me my voice belongs on radio.
◎ Friends, colleagues, strangers, from every angle, often in the same exact words. I filed each one under things people say to be nice.
◎ “Who me? No way… get out of here.” — the reflex answer to a compliment, and the beginning of a quiet self-gaslighting.
◎ A co-producer named Ali Ozbay helped me hear myself from angles I could not hear alone.
◎ LIGHTreflections is the show that came from finally tuning in. It carries a tribute to my paternal Aunt Grace, who held seeds of the Siddhis long before I had language for what she carried.
The full dispatch lives at The Listener’s Path. If this moved something in you — forward it to the person who needed it most.
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The Invitation
Since I was eight years old, at least one person a year has told me my voice belongs on radio.
For decades, I filed it under things people say to be nice. Friends, colleagues, strangers, from every angle, with the same offering and oftentimes the same exact words. Yet I was a bit “hard headed” about this encouragement because I doubted the value of my own vibration even in the wake of consistently complimentary voices.
In my mind, those compliments were outrageously incorrect.
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We Humans have the unique ability to absurdify reality quite skillfully when we try. We ignore signals and synchronicities delivered with real consistency, even when they arrive exclusively for us. We dismiss practically beneficial ideas, sensations, compliments, and reactions, one at a time, each dismissal feeling perfectly reasonable in the moment.
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“Who me? No way… get out of here. You are ridiculous!”
← What is that about? Humility? Humblebness? Perhaps our inability to take a compliment is where gaslighting starts — inside our own denials.
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I treated each arrival as a fluke, as if the twentieth coincidence carried the same weight as the first, and that deafness is what lies at the heart of this issue of The Listener’s Path.
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In my late 30s, I started tuning in.
Gaining appreciation for my voice enhanced how I showed up in a room. That acceptance shifted how I represented my ideas, my thoughts, my fears in relationships and at work. I learned to advocate for myself, yet was still challenged in speaking up for my own truths in relationships.
As the compliment came more consistently, I began developing podcast ideas. In 2021, I co-produced a series called The Stages with Adrian Franks and Kamau Ware. The show: three Black fathers talking through our health journeys, mental and physical and professional, and how fatherhood shaped our connected paths.
LISTEN TO THE STAGES →
I was still self-conscious about how I sound, however, having Ali Ozbay as co-producer changed my perspective because he could hear what we were saying — the undercurrents and the main message. Building alongside someone else made the voice I doubted easier to trust, and Ali was helpful in helping me hear myself from many angles.
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I am hearing something new these days. People tell me my voice and my presence bring calm. Some have said they sense the presence of cool water. That is data, arriving in a new form: my voice may be offering calm to ecosystems feeling the burn of the noise of our times, and I take that compliment more seriously than ever.
Every friend, stranger, passerby, and collaborator who has complimented my voice over the years was reporting on a missing frequency in their own world — complimentary insights. Fortunately I have grown into the kind of listener who has learned to receive what is in the wind.
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IDEAS FOR TUNING IN
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01
A compliment repeated across years is a pattern, and patterns are worth investigating. One kind word is a politeness. Twenty kind words, from twenty unrelated people, spread across two decades, is a signal with real consistency behind it.
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02
Every signal delivered consistently is a teacher, and the class is always in session. We get to choose when and how we enroll.
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03
Gardening a new pattern works before belief fully arrives. Practice a pattern with purpose — accepting encouragement, leveraging a named gift in your own way — and the repetition itself begins the shift. Belief tends to catch up later.
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04
The people who see your gift early are simply early. They found the signal before you tuned in to it. Trust their timing.
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FIELD NOTES · RESONANCE PROMPTS
What compliment have you heard more than once and quietly dismissed each time?
Where in your life is a synchronicity arriving on schedule, and what has kept you from tuning in?
What pattern would you garden with more purpose, starting this week?
Share your thoughts and perspectives at [email protected]
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THE PRACTICE · 44 MINUTES
If the pattern you are gardening is a practice of presence, a•i•Contemplation is a 44-minute container for exactly that. One active intention. A new way to think about AI.
BEGIN a•i•Contemplation →
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THE NEUROARTS FUND FOR INNERVERSAL HEALTH PRACTITIONERS
I am stewarding The Neuroarts Fund for Innerversal Health Practitioners, which holds a $10,000 endowment from the Artizen Foundation. If your services and/or creative work lives anywhere near sound medicine, somatic integration, steeping arts, narrative self-expression, or innerversal health practice, the fund is worth five minutes of your attention.
EXPLORE WHETHER YOUR PROJECT QUALIFIES →
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Memes are magnetic. Meaning they are meant for the pace and place of our thoughts. The They that you want to send it to has their own.
THIS DISPATCH IS MEANT TO TRAVEL. · PASS IT TO ONE PERSON.
If this arrived for someone who has heard the same kind thing more than once and waved it off each time — forward it. The signal was patient. It can afford one more year.
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In Growth ::
KzA / Kamau Zuberi Akabueze
Founder · THE ÅLïEN SCõÖL for Creative Thïnking
:: CREÅTIVE STEEPING :: creativesteeping.com :: Å Discovery Worth Steeping In. ::
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TS;FE
A compliment repeated across decades stops being politeness. It becomes a teacher.
“Who me? No way…” is the reflex. Tuning in is the practice.
My paternal Aunt Grace held seeds of the Siddhis long before I had language for what she carried.
LIGHTreflections is the show that came from finally tuning in.
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◎ · :: · ∂ · :: · ◎
THE ARC IS THE ANGLE OF CHANGE
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