Classroom Talk
Fall 2001 Archive
We don't know each other . . . uh, heh-heh (Part One) Posted by John on November 27, 2001 at 23:18:20:
Oh, Lordy. I was tempted to call this class "When all Hell breaks loose at the Institute for Peace and Harmony."
And, as it turned out, I needed two days off this week, so I'm getting in on this awfully late. Yes, as all of you might imagine, I do have a word or
two to say about what's going on here now. Let's DO call a time-out, please, and see if I can get in some coaching here.
First of all, we can all see that there are engagements happening, as we refer to that in the awareness game. There is score on scoreboards all over the
place. Words in space have impact, and they kick off reactions back and forth. Everything that I was talking about before Thanksgiving Vacation in
"The Point" is happening here now before our very eyes.
So that's good. It may surprise you that I look at it that way. But, that's good, so we can try to see if we can understand what's going on in this
whole blatant drama which seems to me to portray perfectly the ordinary human condition.
The funny thing to me is that I'd been planning to introduce a new term to our awareness game lingo, "being a little edgy." I was going to try that
term out because I thought you students were having some difficulty catching on to what I've been meaning by "stingers" and "being rubbed the
wrong way." It seemed to me that most of you were "minimizing" or playing down your negative emotional feelings and your reactions along the way,
as if there wasn't really anything going on.
Obviously, in all these engagements that I focus on in class, it looks to me like there's something going on. I'm trying to coach you all to be able to see
some of the things that I'm picking up on. But it may be more subtle for you students to see what I'm talking about than I realized. So I was going to
ask you all to just try to watch for times when you could pick up on it that what you say sounds "a little bit edgy," and times when what the other
person says to you sounds "a little bit edgy." Do you see my idea in that? I'm trying to make it easier for you all to be able to spot when ego-driven
personality (as described in this training) is happening.
Well, as this present engagement has gone along, it seems to have gone beyond the "a little bit edgy" level, and . . . shucks, I guess you all have a
pretty good idea by now of what rubbing people the wrong way and what giving stingers back looks like.
And *I'M* in a very interesting predicament in this situation. Here is one student impatient for me to finish with the jigsaw puzzle exercise, and
another student who is bored with that and wants me to turn to something else. Isn't that an interesting situation, Folks? I could ham it up and say
that I'm caught in the middle being pulled apart from two sides. OW! (I wonder if any of you students who are parents ever feel that way when two
of your children with different personality profiles are pulling you in opposite directions.)
If I was as wise as Solomon, I might say: "Go ahead Bruce, Go ahead Sally or Suz . . . take up the sword and cut yer dear ol' coach in half.
The responsible party for all of this that has been going on is me. I can take responsibility for it. First of all, I've promised newcomers, again and again
over the years, that I will take the trouble to try to bring them up to a level where they can play-in comfortably with the rest of the class.
My hope in that is that even though this has slowed down the class for awhile when newcomers have arrived, it will be beneficial to some of the
oldtimers to see how I work with newcomers—at least for those who will some day be teaching their own style of mindfulness training (perhaps to
interested friends or family members, and perhaps, someday, to groups of their own students in this field of training).
You have to give the responsibility to me, and not to Bruce, that I have been doing that during these recent weeks. If you and your sister, Sally, have
been bored, Suz, I don't fault you for being candid and outfront about that. But it's me that has given the instructions for Bruce to follow. He, in
trying to be a good student, has just been doing the things I've been telling him to do—that is, share openly about the things he's noticed and
experienced that seem to illustrate and exemplify the perfectionism (Believer) and the self-effacement (Doormat) that he's been burdoned with as he's
been growing up.
I have to give him credit for his willingness to sit in the hotseat and let me jam off of his transparent data in attempting to teach the whole class what's
happening in typical Believer and Doormat life—not just in his life, but in the lives of most people who have those types in their personality profile. As
we go along with these classes, I'd like to be able to teach all of you to recognize and understand all eight of the types on the wheel, with deep insights
into the workings of each of them. Bruce's willingness to let me work with him in this way has been an opportunity for me to do that with two of his
types so far, and also help him along to a place where he might recognze the other principle type in his make-up, as well.
When Bruce got here, if he had asked me: "Coach, if I sit in the hotseat and I go ahead and follow your instructions, and I be transparent about my
self-effacement and my perfectionism before the whole class, are you going to protect me from getting hurt about that . . . . . what would I have been
able to say to him?
I might have said, "I hope you don't get hurt, Bruce. That's just what the other students in class are so leery of the hotseat about, not wanting to get
hurt." Perhaps I'd have told him, "But there's a chance you will get hurt by participating here. And that's because when people are displaying their
ego-driven personalities, their words have impact in the space, and they impact on the bodies of others in the group, and some of them may be rubbed
the wrong way, and they might be a little edgy when they speak to you, and even give you stingers that may hurt."
So, what is Bruce supposed to get out of this ordeal? And what are you all supposed to understand by an exercise like this? Bruce may have a
realization, first of all, that he *has* a personality profile, that he has the habitual patterns of several of the types. And he may come to realize that
because of these personality types, as he is going through his daily life in the world, he is sometimes going to be rubbing other people the wrong way.
He may realize that his personality types can get in the way of his happiness and his talents. The very *music* of his types can sting other people
without his realizing it, and bring stingers back upon him. (And so it is with each one of us, I assure you all.)
He may come to realize that when his personality types are sounding on the stage of his world, he is unwittingly "being his own worst enemy," like I
was saying in "The Point," he is bringing about his own suffering.
This same thing is true for each and every one of us in this class. In our ego-driven personalities, we are getting in our own way, we are being our
own worst enemy. It is only through realizing this that people will finally take the trouble of embarking on transformative work . . . in order to
change, in order to start working towards coming from our essence more of the time, instead of going too far, automatically, in the excesses of our
personalities.
It is not Sally or Suz who are your enemies, Bruce. It is your own personality that provokes reactions in them—without any of you realizing what's
going on. It is not Bruce who is your enemy, Sally and Suz. It is your own personalities that provoke reactions in him. And, again, none of you have
quite groked this yet.
I thought you did a pretty good job starting out communicating your own candid experience, Suz, without stinging. I could see that you were
earnestly doing your best. We have respected each other, immensely. And you have been Woman enough to let me make some coaching suggestions
to "improve your game" in the past, and taken it to heart. And in tonight's class, I'll try to do that again before I'm through here. But we can see, can
we not, that both you and Bruce have been "a little bit edgy" in your remarks to each other. It seems clear to me that both of you have wound up
being rubbed the wrong way by each other, and both of you have been stung.
In fairness to the old-timers, I ought to make something clear here. During the previous dozen semesters of Classroom Talk, we have been focusing
on the "peace" part of this training—focusing on ways that each of you students might work on having greater peace within you individually. This is
the first semester so far, in all of our years on-line, where we have shifted over into the "harmony" side of the training, focusing on ways that you can
work on having greater harmony with others around you.
That's a quantum leap. For the first time now we are getting our teeth into learning in a methodical and coherent way how to play the awareness
game, which entails a much more advanced technology of doing transformative work. This semester is like a brand new training for the old-timers, as
much so as it is a brand new training for newcomers. So newcomers cannot realistically expect that the old-timers have got the whole awareness game
down pat yet, because we are all just starting to get into that now.
As we have seen, some mistakes are being made. But that is only to be expected as we are beginning this new curriculum here now. I must admit,
when I feel how hectic the situation seems to be right now, that this whole approach, this whole training is *only an experiment*. I don't know if we
are all going to be able to go forward with this training and *make it work*, or not. I sure hope so. As we made the transition into this semester, I
had the feeling that if ever we were going to be able to pull it off, and all work together in this intimate, personal, and transparent process of training
in this class, it was going to be now. Maybe I overestimated. Maybe we aren't quite ready for this kind of work yet. I guess it isn't going to be as
easy as I thought. Maybe, in the final analysis, we will find out that this is just impossible to do over the Internet. We'll just have to see if we can bring
it off. I still think we can.
So this part of the training is new for each and every one of you. How I wish all of you could be contrite with each other about this. Give each other
Hell at the end of the course, if some of you still haven't been learning the things I've been teaching by then. But I wish you wouldn't give each other
Hell in the beginning, before any of you have really had a chance to catch-on thoroughly to this radical new method that I'm only starting to explain to
you here.
I've tried hard, but unsuccessfully, to convey to you all already that it doesn't matter to me whose game-tape data I am coaching off of at any given
time. It doesn't matter which one of you is in the hotseat. From my standpoint as a coach, *whatever* I am coaching about here with *any of you*, is
potentially valuable for *all of you* to learn. I wouldn't be coaching it, if I didn't feel that way.
I've also tried to explain that I work by laying a foundation, laying a foundation, laying a foundation. When you first brought up that angry nightmare
you told us about, Bruce, I felt I hadn't laid enough of a foundation for addressing that with you yet. I needed to lay more foundation about
processing negative emotional feelings, for one thing. *As soon as* I felt I had laid the foundation for it, I shared with you what I had to say about
that dream.
From your standpoint, I haven't finished up the jigsaw puzzle exercise fast enough to suit you. That series of classes is for you, but it's for everyone
else in the class, as well. And all these intervening classes I've been giving have been laying a foundation for you, and for everyone else. When I
round off the jigsaw puzzle series—yes, it's true that is very important to me—it will be when I sense that I have laid a foundation for the last parts of
it.
I may have rough edges as a coach, and I make mistakes, and I'm certainly not perfect. But there IS a method to my madness, as I prioritize these
classes as we go along.
And even though you may not be getting this training exactly the way you want to get this training, Bruce, you seem to be saying you are finding
nourishment in it, after all. And certainly, you have progressed to where you have gotten off of the Doormat patterns, powerfully so, even. And you
have already started the work on taming the Believer, though that's still a powerful force in determining the course of your classroom life, so far.
Maybe you aren't ready to figure out your other primary type yet. Maybe you've got enough on your hands to be working on, already.
Now, getting back to this brouhaha in class. The whole thing caught fire with that "What about me?!?!?!" post. Golly how I wish this would ring a
bell for some you. "Oh yeah, of course! Ding-ding-ding-ding-ding! *That* was when "the shit hit the fan!" Sally mentioned it was that post that
rubbed her the wrong way.
And it was *innocent*, completely innocent. I had egged you on, Bruce. And you had only followed my instructions in baring a little more of your
personality by posting that. In fact, that was one of the gestures you have made that got me to compliment you for the knack you seem to have for
coming up with the *best* diagnostic information for me to have insights off of. This one was "a dilly!" As soon as I heard this one line, I immediately
knew twice as much about your personality formation as I had known before that time. I learned that just as the Doormat is one sure bet in your
personality make-up, the Believer is another sure bet. This one phrase *convinced me of it*. And soon after that you had insights that helped you to
see also that the Believer was another of your basic types, along with the Doormat. (We were two-thirds of the way home with the jigsaw puzzle by
then!).
"What about me?!?!?!" could be called *the battle cry* of the Believer. It is really the battle-cry of perfectionism. There is a similar phrase under the
Believer in the wheelbook ("Don't forget about me!!!") But "What about me?" says it even better! Although I hadn't gotten to it yet in my jigsaw
puzzle talks, I penned a note to myself saying: "This is Bruce's biggest and best task to undertake for the rest of 2001!!!" I meant, catching on to, and
understanding through and through the "What about me?" game, and learning you don't have to be identified with that.
Bruce was *innocent* when he posted that "What about me?" post. How could he have known that was going to rub Sally the wrong way, and rub
Suz the wrong way? Yet, no matter how sophisticated and mellow we get in this class, no matter how calm and objective we become, we can't
suspend the laws of physics when it comes to human relating. Words in space DO have impact, and some of us will react. For certain people, the
sound of "What about me?" is like fingernails on a blackboard, it drives them up the wall!
Where I'd like to go with this discussion is on into the theme that "We don't know each other." This is very important to understand. We don't know
each other. But we *can* learn to know each other. It takes having the patience and the calm awareness to get over reacting to the stingers so much .
. . to get through that and discover where the other person is coming from.
Bruce doesn't know Sally, or where she is coming from. He doesn't really know Suz. And the sisters don't really know Bruce and where he is coming
form. I maintain—and the awareness game maintains—that if we take the trouble to really get to know each other it becomes much, much easier to
fore-give each other. When we really get to understanding where the other person has been coming from we are in a position to be able to say: "Oh,
if I'd understood that about you, I wouldn't have been rubbed the wrong way in the first place."
But I've let it get late this evening. And I'm really tired now. I took off for thirty minutes and called Brent in San Francisco. He's doing well. He says
to say "Hello" to you all. He really dug that "The Point" class, said it brought a lot of things into clearer focus for him. "You're in a groove," he said.
Well . . . . heh-heh . . . . everybody here may not see it that way . . . so far, anyway.
It seems like an awkward place to break this off now, but I feel like I need to get some sweet rest right away! I'm wondering if I title this class "We
don't know each other (Part One)" I can ever show my face in class again???
But I hope you'll give me a chance to get to Part Two of this talk. Let's see what tomorrow brings. I'd like to have a few tips for Suz, and for Sally,
and for Ralph—based on these recent-most postings of yours—in attempting to coach each of you to go on making improvements in your play of this
game.
But, at this moment, I seem to be "hitting the wall." My head is nodding, my body's slumpiing, and it's getting hard to keep my eyes open.
Love you all. Peace! And . . . . heh-heh . . . . harmony if you can.
Coach
Oh yeah, that question about whether I use stingers awarely "for your own good" is a good one. I'll remember to get back to that one, too.
Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz............................
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