A coach's dilemma: keeping up and staying in the now. Posted by John on November 16, 1999 at 15:51:35:
Not a very auspicious start for the day, Kiddees. Didn't get much done in the
morning, fell asleep again around noon with the television on. The
phone rang, and I knocked it off the cradle waking up, and I didn't get
hold of it again until the person had hung up, apparently having heard
only the *strident* conversation of a television movie in the
background. Ha! Isn't that a good one? I did some processing of my
anger over that. It might have been an important call. Now, I'll never
know . . .
I'm a vulnerable human. We are all vulnerable humans. We react. We
become upset. The question is, how to prevent reactions we have to
events that come up in our lives *from taking over our lives*? How do
we become free of this altogether human characteristic of re-acting to
events automatically? I could be sitting here still being angry now.
Instead, I just noticed during a pause a moment ago that my hands were
steepling—i.e. body language for "I'm on top of it!" :-)
I suppose I have been conning not just Douglas, but all of you students
for a long time—and conning *me*!—about being able to keep up with
Classroom Talk. I'm always promising that I'll have certain responses
at a certain time, and then not coming up with them on time. Every time
I promise that I'm going to have a posting about something or other at a
certain time, it's "a con." I don't know if I'm gonna be able to do
that. Sometimes I can. And often I can't. Yet I go on promising
things that I can't deliver. I'm learning how to fly this Bulletin
Board by the seat of my pants, as we are going along here. One of the
things I was day-dreaming about this morning as I was goofing away the
hours, was that I really, really think that by the end of the second
month of 2000, I am gonna have this job down, and I'm gonna be able to
field your comments promptly and smoothly, right and left, and keep up
with the flow of it very well. In the meantime, I'm still learning how
to pace myself, and get the handling of our classroom conversations more
perfected, to run more smoothly.
I'm reminded of a dream Doug once told us about, a dream of the bunch of
us being together. And the most poignant part of his dream to me was
the part about us being able to "finish conversations." Yes, it is
frustrating, isn't it? Right now, I'm feeling tight in the gut about
not responding yet to Lydia. And there's that "mystery question" with
Suzy that I set up and haven't finished yet. And, of course, the person
I'm most indebted to, for unfinished conversations, is you, Doug. And
{gulp}, to answer your questions, I'm going to have to confess to you
that I've been conning you on purpose, and explain how I've been doing
that, methodically, for the sake of being a good coach to you, my
friend, for the sake of being conscientious.
Meanwhile, along comes Michael, with a bunch of the best questions I
could be responding to now, just perfect questions for carrying "the
lesson plan" along further at this stage!
What's a poor coach to do, Kiddees? One of the prime instructions of
the training we are learning here says: "Deal with the here-and-now
first! Work with what comes up in the present." Yet another of the
prime instructions here is: "Do what you set out to do. Follow through
and deliver on your intentions." I am torn between two of the cardinal
rules of mindful warriorness. And I wish, from the bottom of my heart,
to observe them both! What a dilemma—how to catch up when I'm behind,
and how to deal sharply and decisively at the same time with the
present.
Now, it turns out, amazingly, that there is an answer that lies at hand,
that I am not seizing upon. I already wrote out about fifteen pages of
that long class that will handle most of my arrears in responding. I
could have posted that when I wrote it, at the end of last week. So . .
. . what's the hang-up?
The hang-up is that my ego has come into the picture, and blocked me.
My ego wasn't satisfied with the way I wrote that long class. It lacked
the punch that I was looking for. It didn't seem to "sing." I didn't
feel it "had my heart in it." It wasn't good enough for my ego to post
it on-line. Has this every happened to you, any of you students? Yes,
several of you have mentioned uncertainties about whether the things you
were posting here were "up to snuff." And here I am being hung up by
that, too . . . the vanity of authorship. Isn't this interesting to see
when it comes up. The ego wants us to be somebody special, and it hangs
us up if we don't seem to be being "special enough" from the ego's
egotistical point of view.
(Those of you who are old-timers around here know already that I don't
make claims to being a "perfect master." I have an ego and personality
just like all you students here do. That being the case, I am often
prone to using stories about my own ego and personality to illustrate
the points that I am trying to teach. I hope that all of you here will
be more and more comfortable to do the same, as this semester rolls
along. I've been seeing more examples of that frank disclosure of one's
own ego and personality lately, and I like it. And, of course, I'm
"working on" my ego and personality as we go along, working to get freer
and freer of it, little by little. And I invite all of you to practice
doing the same.)
So . . . . . how can I resolve my dilemma? How can I both get caught
up, and, at the same time, work in the present, deal with the present,
be in the present, take action in the present? There's an easy answer
at hand. If I can just "step aside" from my ego, and go ahead and post
that "rough draft" that I wrote the other day that I wasn't satisfied
with, that didn't puff up my ego the way I wanted, with no changes, just
the way I wrote it, ("warts and all," as they say), then I will be free
to act, decisively. I will be caught up, right on the spot, here and
now . . . . . or nearly caught up, for I can then start addressing
Michael's wonderful new questions yesterday.
Well, I won't really be caught up. But I'll be caught up with
everybody, I think, except you, Douglas. Our teacher/student
relationship is still "a work in progress," pal. And I think I have
more work to do about it at this point than you. Would you be willing
to team-up with me, and just watch where this goes from this point on?
It seems I've conned my self into a corner with you. But you are doing
your part just fine.
Coach
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