Now and then ie every once in a while, someone will say something which
completely alters
my reality.
Said with
more rigor,
every once in a while someone will say something which completely
alters what's possible for
the reality I
create for myself.
And they'll say it in a really off-hand way as if they don't have much
riding on it, as if they don't have much attachment to it. And then
upon looking closer,
I'll see there's no "as if" to it at all. It's they don't
have much riding on it or much attachment to it. Yet their off-hand way
stops me in my tracks. I'll gasp "Wow! Did they really just say what I
think I heard them say?".
Such nuggets are often spoken off-handedly by people
awake to the possibility
that being transformed brings to living. They're not spoken forcefully.
They may not even be planned. They're likely to have been spoken
spontaneously without any intention to convince anyone of their their
truth, validity or value. Indeed, that may be what makes them valuable
(with all that said,
the way
they're delivered is a subject for another conversation on another
occasion).
I was speaking with a good friend of mine whose
coaching
I trust. It's a mutual trust which has been established for at least
thirty years. I was sharing (no, I was venting - to tell
the truth, I was venting) about how people who say things which are
unfairly critical,
make me upset.
And the truth is most often, they aren't critical. Nonetheless when I
hear them as critical, I get retaliatory,
upset,
tacitly aggressive - for example, when
my integrity
is challenged, or when
my contribution
is under-appreciated. An automatic, defensive response over which I
seem to have little or no control, is triggered - and
I'm upset.
And that's when my friend /
coach
said patiently and kindly (I want you to get this) "You may not
be upset
by what they said. You may
be upset
by
what you made what they said
mean,
and then assumed it's what they said.". That's when I gasped
"Wow! Did he really just say what I think I heard him say?".
What makes what he said so valuable? so
extraordinary?
For me it's that it provides an access to a powerful shift I can make
in
the way
I hold anything people say. Simply put, it provides an
access to reclaiming my balance of power over
being upset
when someone says something (I hear as) critical. Even more so, it's
effortless reclaiming my balance of power
this way.
Reclaiming my balance of power after
an upset,
can be arduous.
This way,
it's effortless.
Look: even if it were true that
"they" upset me
ie even if it were true that they cause me to
be upset
(the colloquial way of looking at
being upset,
is that someone
makes me
upset),
then I don't have much power over the situation. But if it's true
rather that it's
me being upset
not with what they say but with
what I make what they say
mean,
then I'm left with a lot of power over the situation, a
power which the
"they upset me"
paradigm simply doesn't afford.
Since then, this is
the next thing
I've begun inquiring into ie this is what I've begun trying on for
size: I'm trying on that maybe I'm not
upset
by anything people say (over which I have no power); I'm trying on that
maybe
I'm upset
by
what I make what they say
mean
(over which I have almost total power). It's a distinction which gives
a powerful access to reclaiming my balance of power, a distinction
which when deployed, separates the men from the boys.