If you
begin
with the premise that more than
who we are
but also
howwe are,
whether we're conscious of it or not, whether we're willing to be
responsible for it or not, is a product of our own doing ie
is a product of our own
creation,
then there's a real opportunity for allways
of being to be up for grabs and to become
freely
accessible. It's the opportunity not only for bringing forth new
ways
of being to which we only had limited access before, but also to
complete
and discard old
ways
of being, especially those tired old
ways
of being we always knew didn't
work,
and yet somehow seemed powerless over and stuck with anyway.
Contrarily, if you dispute or doubt that
who we are
and
howwe are
is entirely our own doing (colloquially put, if you can't wrap your
head around the notion that
who we are
and
howwe are
is entirely our own doing), then you've talked yourself into a corner,
a predicament in which you
believe
you have no
power
to
transformwho you are
or
howyou are.
In that case, this
conversation for
transformation
and any others like it, may not be for you.
Authentictransformation
however, is predicated on the assertion that everyone possesses this
power
which is developed by being willing to accept responsibility for it.
Without the possibility of this
power,
we're left in essence with no ability whatsoever to alter
who we are
and
howwe are
or to affect the outcome of our own lives
(listen:
that's about as
god-damned
a premise from which to live on this
planet
as there could ever be).
People are
generous
with me. People let me in. People are willing to share both their
victories
and their
tears
with me (and oftentimes, their
tearsare their
victories).
They're willing to share intimate moments of profound honesty with me.
That people would be like this with me, didn't start out as my mission
in life. Yet it comes I suppose, largely or in part, from
the way
things have turned out for me: that
it's all over for
Laurence Platt,
that
who I am
as my
story
ie
who I am
as my series of doings and accomplishments, is both
clearly
and cleanly distinct from
who I really am
ie from
who we all really
are
as
human beings.
This gives me the space to have a
personalrelationshipwith everyone.
I regard peoples' sharing as a gift - whatever they're choosing to
share. Some people share their dissatisfaction with themselves with me
ie their dissatisfaction with
how
they're being. And when they share their dissatisfaction with me, a
common component of their experience is they say they have no
control over
how
they're being. They want to be more of
the way
they
love
being, and they want to be less (ie a lot
less) of
the way
they don't
love
being ie with which they're dissatisfied. Some of them go as far as
saying they hate being
the waythey are.
Uh oh! When you're being one
way
which you
love
being, while avoiding being some other
way
which you don't
love
being,
clearlyyou're not being full, whole, and
complete
as a
human being.
Such behavior by its very nature, is
self-defeating
ie
self-sabotaging.
Especially when people are willing to tell
the truth
about it
unflinchingly,
it's not difficult to track the
origin
of such
self-defeating
behavior ie of such
self-sabotaging
behavior. Something
happened
when they were young which - for a
child
- was a failure ie which was experienced as a failure.
They disliked that experience of failure, and furthermore disliked
themselves for being unable to dislodge that experience of failure -
which led to them ongoingly disliking themselves for being
ongoingly unable to dislodge that experience of failure. So you could
say there are actually two experiences of failure. There's
the primary experience of failure which came from the
originalincident
in which they failed (known appropriately as the
"originatingincident").
And then there's also a secondary even more destructive,
pernicious experience of failure: the experience of failure which comes
from failing to alleviate the primary experience of failure.
It's truly a double whammy.
Here's the thing:
how
can a
child
ever dislodge this experience of failure without realizing they're
the
source
of it? More pointedly,
how
can a child ever not be
howthey're being?
(hint: neither changing nor
fixing
is an option - more on this coming
next).
I'm not a therapist. I don't dispense therapy. That said, if they're
going to be generous enough to share with me whatever it is about
themselves they're dissatisfied with ie whatever it is about themselves
they don't
love,
then I'll ask them to stop
creating
a dichotomy out of it. What does it mean to "stop
creating
a dichotomy out of it"? It means to stop only
identifying
with the behavior they
love,
to
suspend
judging any of it (momentarily at least), and to not
attempt to ignore or escape the behavior they don't
love
ie to simply be with all of it. Once they take that on, I
then challenge them to look and see if they can really
honestly be a full, whole, and
complete,
human being
while giving me only their good stuff, and holding back on
giving me the bad stuff.
Sometime around then, they realize (figuratively) they can't toss
only the heads of their
dime
while withholding its tails.
Sometime around then, they realize
the way out
is to embrace it all ie to
love
it all. Sometime around then, they realize hacking away (so to
speak)
at what they don't
love
about themselves, never did them any good anyway. More than that,
hacking away at what they don't
love
about themselves only reinforces its
presence,
entrenching it deeper and more permanently.
Perhaps and arguably the only difference between people who
love
themselves, and people who don't
love
themselves, is people who don't
love
themselves haven't yet considered (or have simply missed)
the possibility that they're already one full, whole, and
complete
package,
perfect
exactly
the way
they are (and exactly
the way
they aren't), with no changing or
fixing
required. People who
love
themselves, on the other hand, really do
get
it - or at least they have the space for it to be so.
Gee! I hope you got that. Your
dime
is your
dime
in its entirety. You can't toss only the heads of your
dime
while withholding its tails. Life just doesn't
work
that
way.