Cowboy Cottage,
East Napa, and Auberge du Soleil, Rutherford
California, USA
May 5 and 25, 2016
"There are certain things that I think you have to be willing to be
responsible for when you
step
into people's lives."
...
I am indebted to Jubal Raffety who inspired this conversation.
Almost everyone who
participates
in
Werner's work
experiences a spontaneous, enthusiastic urge to share what they
got
for themselves, with their
family
and
friends
and the people they
love - with
everyone actually, but especially with their
family
and
friends
and the people they
love.
It's
true.
Really it is. What that is, is a
natural
correlation of people experiencing being
free
to be, then having
mastered
the access to being free to be - arguably for the first
time.
And even though I say "almost everyone who
participates
in
Werner's work"
and not "everyone who
participates
in
Werner's work",
the actual number is in any case a disproportionate percentage of
people who experience that spontaneous, enthusiastic urge to share what
they
got,
compared to another similar group of people
participating
in almost anything else.
So there I was, sharing something with someone I had just been
introduced to, an attractive woman I liked immediately. It was
something I'd
gotten
about being fully
awake
to the possibility of
who I really am,
something I
got
when I first
participated
in
Werner's work
almost forty years ago.
It is something which has always stayed incredibly valuable for me. She
listened,
looked at me, looked away, then looked back at me again ... then said
"That's funny", a quizzical look on her
face.
"What is so funny?" I asked casually, certain I hadn't made a
joke
(at least not
intentionally).
"What's so funny is I don't remember either asking you or paying you to
train
me?".
It was like I had run into a
brick
wall. We all know what that
feels
like. It is one of the worst things for me when I'm coming from full,
unbridled enthusiasm, only to have someone stonewall me, or make me
wrong, or simply not
get
me, yes? I blanched, stopped in my tracks. I
felt
horrible, thwarted, deflated. Yet
the truth
of the matter is she did me a great
service
(it's more than that actually: it's she changed my life). In that
moment, I realized I had to look beyond my own enthusiasm, and instead
look into the
listening
of whomever I'm
speaking
with, then
speakdirectly
into that
listening
if I'm ever going to share
this work
really effectively with people.
What also goes with this territory of sharing
transformation
(which is to say what is also almost inevitable
when sharing
transformation)
is your
conversations
will take deeply intimate,
personal
turns. It goes with this territory of sharing
transformation
that you'll
step
into people's lives, like a guest. And if you ever
get
they experience you as an uninvited, unwanted
guest, you should leave right away. As an uninvited, unwanted
guest, your listen-ability (if you will) is nearly zero -
like theirs is nearly zero when they are your uninvited,
unwanted guests, yes? What I first noticed when I was so
masterfully
stonewalled
way
back when, was it was the result of me not being responsible for the
way
I was being. Enthusiasm alone is not enough. I saw my enthusiasm, left
unchecked and wild, can have the unwanted effect of abdicating my
responsibility for
who I really am
in this matter.
Listen:
there are few
biggertransformation
killers when you
step
into people's lives, than abdicating responsibility.