Classroom Talk
Fall 2001 Archive
There ya go again! ;-) Posted by John on December 07, 2001 at 21:06:49:
In Reply to: Listen for *the music* of it! posted by John on December 06, 2001 at 15:26:35:
I can see, Bruce—just as I saw with Suz's efforts the other day—that you are putting a lot of effort into making the method work for you in that first
e-mail in this series we are studying now. I do give you credit for that effort!
You *didn't* make any "You-statements" to me in it. You *didn't* put me in a box of judgments. You spoke from your own inner experiences. And
that is what "communication" in the awareness game is all about! You spoke from your own sphere, instead of telling me where I am being at. That's
good. But, heh-heh, you "skirted the edges" of manipulativeness anyway—just as Suz "skirted the edges" in attempting to convey her own candid
experiences with you back then. Or, at least, my sense of it as a coach is that both of you went a little bit too far.
So far, we've only scratched the surface of the phenomenological impressions that can be gleaned from that first e-mail. If a person is being awake and
centered, the search for this data can be conducted *line by line* in anyone's ongoing conversation, and even *word by word*. So I'd like to show us
all a little of that before going on to your second and third e-mails today.
You said:
>I've read and reread the wheelbook and I can't identify my chief feature and main three types.
There seem to be two distinct parts to this—each with its own distinct music. The hurried-up cadence of the first part sounds like notes of Believer to
me. You are showing that you are being a faithful student in saying that. It just came to your mind to say it that way, a statement that . . . . . "invites
the teacher's approval" of the work you have been doing.
Now the energy level "tails off" notably in the second part of that refrain. "I can't" is none-other than, ta-dah, the battle-cry of the Doormat! So we
have the "leaping upward" sound of the first part, and then the "downward falling" sound of the second part. First it's going eight to the bar, and
then it poops out. Can all of you see that, and *feel it*? — "I'm doing the homework again and again."/"I can't." — That sounds to me like Believer
and Doormat singing a duet.
>Doormat, Believer....are definites?? The third—I don't have a clear cut clue: I see Judge, Con Artist
Ha! This is too priceless for words! I don't know if Doormat and Believer are "definites." You have to see if that is true on your own, by continuing
to monitor the ongoing process of your behavior in mindfulness. But, heh-heh, Believer and Doormat are what you seem to be doing *right here now*
in this post, just as you ask the question.
And, on top of that, the answer you came up with, intuitively (Many Student/Believers need to learn to recognize and acknowledge their own
intuition more often than they do! And this type has got a lot of intuition!), on top of that you have come up with the same answer that I had come up
with at this point of the exercise!!! You intuit Judge or Con Artist. And I intuit Judge or Con Artist.
So, even while you portray yourself as being in some state of unsatisfactoriness, even while you come across as "a failure" in the progress of this
exercise, the truth of the matter (and it shows up in a matter of seconds in *high relief*, right there before your blinkin' eyes!)—the truth is that your
Doormat "I can't" was just another Doormat lie. The truth of it is that you *can* and you *have* kept right up, stride for stride, with me, the Coach, on
solving this question! This is definitely something to reflect about. As you can now plainly see, you *already knew* the answer that you were
depending on me to give to you . . . . . only you didn't know that you already knew it, so you were left depending on me.
It occurs to me that what you *might have said* in that e-mail was: "I've got intuitions that say my third type is either the Judge or the Con Artist, but
I'm not crystal clear on it yet." And I'd have probably responded, heh-heh, "Keep on truckin'. Keep on watching your process." And I wouldn't have
felt any "pressure" about it to do anything about it, except go right on with what I'm doin' here in class, at the intentionally mellow speed with which
I'm trying to do it. (I'm pretty sure I can safely say that I'd be doing just what I am doing right here now in this class—except with those other game
tapes to work off of—as I'd have been doing on this Friday afternoon, even if you hadn't e-mailed me to try to get me to do this in the first place.)
As it turns out, there is NO HARM. In fact, it turns out to be a surprise *blessing*, because these e-mails of yours are even better for my purposes
here than those older posting tapes were. But the reason I can say truly that there's no harm is that I didn't wind up reacting to you about it.
Although I felt "pressured" over it, and "hurried up," I could let that feeling of being rubbed the wrong way pass right on through me without gaining
purchase on my muscles, without clutching up with negative emotional feelings, and reacting by "getting even with you" somehow, or giving you a
stinger back. Heh-heh. Hee-hee. Well . . . . . when I called you "smart guy" yesterday—cough, cough—I *was* reacting just a leetle bit, and, even
though I was only kidding, and teasing, that *was* stinging you back, I admit.
But once yer dear ol' grey-headed Coach was a *notorious* Rebel, Bruce. That was much worse in me years ago, when I might have reacted to this e-
mail with "Fuck this shit! I don't need this!" Once there was a John Bilby who walked across this earth who—I'm ashamed to say it now—might have
made you wait until Hell freezes over for your answer, simply because I was rubbed the wrong way, simply because I felt pressured about it. And we
Rebels can hate to do *anything* the way other people tell us to do it. "Let me do it my own way!" That is the battle-cry of the Rebel. — So, there
are two examples of ways that personality might get in your way, and personality might get in my way, too.
Of course, you didn't know me that well. You didn't know I ever might have reacted that way, nor probably even considered the fact that I AM a
Rebel. And, fortunately, this is a new age now. In truth, I am delighted to serve you . . . . . when the time comes and it plays out smoothly that way.
(And, heh-heh, as we are going to see in your follow-up e-mail, that pressure on me is going to get not weaker, but stronger!)
>Anyway, I've been patient...Could you at least give me a preliminary diagnosis of what you guess is my chief feature? and my three principle? I have the foundation to handle it.
Ah, you are reasoning with me here. Here begins your "legal case" for adjudicating the rights and wrongs of it. In the movie of this, we might see
you with your hands held out before you, palms up, as if weighing the justice of the situation here. This is music of the Judge to me.
And . . . "I've been patient...Could you at least" — Listen for the music of *impatience* in this, if you can hear it. This is the music of the Believer to
me, in two-part harmony with the Judge.
You have the foundation for it, you say. Let's set this point aside, and remember it, when we get to your next e-mail. "Hopefully," is a note of
Believer. Believers are always hoping that the approval and security that they are pining for will come true. If I would give you what you wanted (so
the hypothesis goes), you would feel approved of, and "taken care of." So I did! I gave you everything you asked for (as far as I could tell). Let's see
where it goes from there.
.........................................................................
Thursday, November 29th.
>John,
>Thanks for the e-mail. My hope is that you continue the jigsaw puzzle in class just as you planned to do it before the shit hit the fan.
So you went out with hope, and you've come back in with hope. Nothing wrong with that! But it's the music of the Student/Believer. So are
"thanks" and other expressions of politeness in the Student/Believer province (regardless of the main types of whoever is expressing politeness).
Again, what's the person doing here? — Still trying to get me to finish up the jigsaw puzzle exercise that I'd left unfinished.
>Your telling me that my third type is probably the Judge adds very little to my work at this time. . . . Believer, Doormat, Judge---so what!
Huh??? Ha!!! Didn't I do exactly what you had asked me for??? I might have told you before that if I gave away the answers to you without your
having the foundation for it, the answers might not mean much to you, and you might say "So what?"
You were the one who claimed you had the foundation down. I didn't think so. At this point I was feeling kind of frustrated (i.e. Martyr—"How
could you treat me this way after all I've done for you?"
>What I find extremely enlightening is your HERMENEUTICAL skill: to witness how you diagnose personality in every line of a game tape is what will help me most to understand myself and others. . . . What I really look forward to and would like to learn from you is how to study a game tape to discover what personality dynamics are revealed in it line by line. This is what I've been impatiently waiting for. I feel it's possible to continue with the work [in the way that you'd have handled it in class]. What do you think?
Well, in the first place, I don't have any idea what hermeneutical means. You're talking over my head (so a suspicion of Con Artist arises). In the
second place, I'm feeling seriously "jacked around," thus more even Con-Artist-like to me.
But you're still talking "from your own realm of exerience" here, so I *have to* give you credit for that. You are making an effort here to keep away
from attacking me directly. But aren't you skirting on the edge of manipulating me here anyway? Do you see what I mean? No sooner do I let you
talk me into giving you an answer that I wasn't ready to give you yet . . . which turned out to be a "So what?" for you . . . but the very next day, after
a quick thanks, you are tugging at my sleeve again, coming at me with more questions from yet another direction about things I'm not quite prepared
to tell you about yet. Sure, you are being a good student. But, how? Can you see that this hurry you are in puts pressure on me again?
Again, bear in mind the secret information here, that you are asking me to do a bunch of things that I was certainly—in my own mind—going to be
doing anyway!
Even if I'd had the presence of mind to have told you to slow down and take it easy because I'd be getting around to it one of these days when I
could . . . I don't think that would have soothed the anxiety you were having within you about this one bit. In your own sphere, typical Believer
tensions were running high in you again. The music sounded more or less the same.
>If someone else wants to answer the questions you asked and become the Case Study, that's fine with me.
Is this really a viable option that you are giving me here? Pardon me if I dishonor myself by saying this, but I was skeptical of this statement. Do you
sincerely mean that you'd really have calmed down and been satisfied if I'd replied to this: "Okay, fine! I'll do a work-up on this with Suz, or with Lou
next week, and we'll be ready to go forward on this study by next January." I don't mean to be cynical, but I don't think that would have satisfied
you.
>Again, I want to learn how you are able to do hermeneutics on a game tape to bring into awareness the music of the types. I have both a personal and professional interest in this work.
Aha, you are reasoning with me again. That's the reason you are in a hurry about it. I see.
>You're right about my JUDGE having an INWARD dynamic. That's the shame as inner self-devaluation.
Well thank you, you give me credit for one here. I confess that I'd thought you would find that particular teaching so interesting that you'd have sat
with it like a brick in your lap for a long time. But it gets sort of "short shrift," as the say, for, in the next breath:
>I really wanted to see you dissect my childhood origin tapes: that's the kind of stuff that will really wake me up. Unfortunately, saying...Doormat, Judge, Believer.....doesn't do it for me---not a prize answer!
I see.
Parenthetically, I didn't say "Doormat, Judge, Believer." I said: "Believer, Doormat, Judge." I remember when you hated the idea that the Doormat
was your chief feature. Actually, I think it's the Believer that's your *chief feature*, and not the Doormat after all. That's because the impatient
Believer is taking such a commanding and persistent lead in the whole gist of this conversation you are having with me here.
What could I say to you that might reassure you more than I have already? Is there anything that would satisfy? (Remember when I once said I
didn't think that perfectionism could ever work for you, because perfectionism seems to be *insatiable*?) I've already pointed out several times in class
how very important that jigsaw puzzle exercise is to me personally, how excited I am about it, how highly important it is for the completion of this
training. I've explained why I've been keen to finish it up for the sake of the whole class. There's been no doubt in my mind whatsoever that I would
finish it up . . . . when the right time came around for it, that is, and it fit right in smoothly with the flow. . . . . . Yet, you keep comin' on, you keep
comin' on! Heh-heh. Do you see what I mean?
>It was quite painful, for me, to answer those questions you asked (Repeat Performances Ad Nauseum) and I would like very much if you would do a Game Tape analysis of that post at least.
Here you are reasoning with me again. It is your "legal case" for "justice." And there is definitely a note of Martyr in this, too. "How could you treat
me this way after all I've done for you?" There is a little bit of a (Martyr's) guilt trip on me in this one, I think, if you can pick up on that. "Because I
am hurting, you should do this for me to make me feel better."
Again, you are gritting your teeth and managing to come *entirely from your own sphere* in all these remarks. I give you "A" for effort in that. You
aren't putting judgments onto me. Yet you are skirting the edge, anyway, and it comes across anyway that I "should be feeling guilty" for putting you
through that pain, and make up to you for it.
Jeeminy Christmas! I WILL get to your answers to my two questions, Bruce. There's never been any doubt in my mind that I would get that specific
part of it woven into this lesson, as well. It might be the only chance I would *ever get* on this website to tie in childhood stuff like that with a
person's present-day funny stuff. I'm thrilled that you've given me that data to work off of! But I haven't laid the foundation yet to get into that
material so far. I'm not ready for doing that yet.
.......................................................................
Soon on the heels of this e-mail, and before I'd had a chance to respond to it, Bruce sent me another e-mail on that same Thursday, the 29th. When I
see one post after another this way, it suggests to me that the process is "speeding up." (Lou, you may be noticing some familiarities in this process.
Others of you here, as well.)
>John,
>After reading your e-mail I went to sleep and had a very painful nightmare. You were a star player in this drama. While reading your letter last night, I thought the tone of it was "edgy" and "tricky" but as usual minimized my reaction and went to sleep thinking I was making mountains out of molehills. Then I had this nightmare which was included terrible scenes of Trickery, Deception, and Cruelty.
>When you wrote that the Con Artist could pretend to be a Doormat to manipulate others for some advantage I knew then and there that I am definitely not a Con Artist. In Drama School, I've written 21 stage plays, my teachers, for example, would always point out that I never leave anything to subtext---I would let it all out.
>I think your praise of Gurdjieff and Perls who both lauded tricking, stinging, attacking others for their own good rubs me the wrong way. Hence, my unconscious is evidently having its trust in you shattered or at least questioned. This nightmare was one of the most disturbing I've had
I take special care to correct your misperception that I show an attitude that I know how to run this class better than you. I tried to help by
mentioning the Enneagram. I mentioned that crosstalk gets in the way of your excellent teaching. Nonetheless, I remain eager to learn from you. My
request that you give me more information about dodging manipulations and avoiding stingers was based on respect and faith that you could provide
me with additional brilliant and useful information. I feel like I'm in a Catch-22 here: If I praise you I'm accused of being a dependent believer ego; on
the other hand, if I offer some feedback I'm regarded as a know it all con artist---neither is true for me!
I guess I'm springloaded to be frightened by Dictators, Rebels, and Con Artists! The nightmare is proof of that. Simple, loving, honest, humble, strong,
and direct is what works best with me. Speaking the Truth from Love is what I like best: mixed messages, ploys, play-action passes, etc... They are in
my mind and here's a line from my nightmare "Superfluous and Gratuitous."
In short, I perceived your e-mail as being replete with mixed, contradictory, and unclear messages.
I'll take a silence fast now,
Bruce
Eager to continue the sacred work! Be my Coach, be my friend, be my teacher!
.......................................................................
Gosh, I sincerely feel the pain for you here. And I'm *sorry* about it! It seems like everything is getting so mixed-up and confused, so *entangled*
here. Obviously there's plenty of tension going on, plenty of score on both our scoreboards. Lou, do you remember when you and I once went
through an ordeal similar to this?
Parenthetically, we can down-grade Con Artist to "less probable" as your third principle type, from the things you say here.)
Also parenthetically, we can make a note to wonder about the question of whether there might be any correlation between these nightmares that you
have and you becoming very angry over another person doing something that you perceive as very, very wrong. There is a lot of Judge music in this
posting. I don't think it was "fear" that was on your "pain body" during these remarks. It sounds to me like anger. (You would be the one who could
find out for sure, by seeing if the main tensions of it were in your neck and shoulders, or in a grimacing and growling mouth.)
Notice that a seeming anger and your *judgment* carries over there to Gurdjieff and Perls. That's what "pops up" for you at that point. And again
you mention the nightmare in association with that. I have a strong hunch this second nightmare you've told us about was an angry nightmare, like
the first one that you brought up. More Judge. That's how the music of it sounds here to me.
I know it's not pleasant to have nightmares. I had one, myself, the other night. But when it happens, it's just another real phenomenon to keep
watching, and studying.
.......................................................................
I responded to both of Bruce's Thursday the 29th e-mails the same day. I'm running as fast as my little old legs will go at this point, trying to keep up
with you here, bruddah.
>I'm not clear on what you mean by my "mixed messages." Would you like to list a few of them for me, please? Like: "You said (A) . . . . . and then you said (B) . . .
>Thanks. When I spoke of "foundation-building," I might have said before that when you ask for and get the answer you want from me, on *your time-table*, without the foundation, you are liable to be in a position of saying "So what?" about it.
>Try to think of what I'm doing as attempting to teach the whole class at once to everybody from a syllabus of foundations that are each pertinent to each of you (in the view of the whole training, at least) for putting together a whole understanding of the training.
>I'm not in a position to teach a whole separate training personalized to your wishes alone. Most of the other students don't yet know, for sure, which are their three principle types. They know one or probably two, and have done some work on that. So you aren't behind the others in that sense. Finding out one's three types on the wheel is only one of a number of things that this training is designed to be about. To be comfortable with this work, one has to be able to slow down to track with its pace. Rakesh and Lou are two of your fellows who learned, with some difficulty, to do that.
>The best results from this training do not come from rushing ahead with it as quickly as possible, but rather in picking up on one or two valuable things to be working on, and—while practicing daily mindfulness with the scope of daily life—working on those things consistently and with perseverence. Making small progress through careful work in these small ways can tend to "spread out," so to speak, in overall progress in one's life. The good that comes from small efforts proliferates, so to speak.
>I have NOT meant to be mean to you *at any time* whatever it is that Perls or Gurdjieff may have done. I'm not that way. I try to be as gentle as I can be in what I do, and yet, for whatever resistance it may generate, I have to do my work by being "confrontive," so to speak. I never knew either of them personally. I never felt I'd have had the wherewithall to stick it out in trainings with Gurdjieff, but I've learned a lot from students of his, who were not like him in personality. Likewise, Perls was said to have been an irrascable fellow—insufferable, some people said. I, personally, probably wouldn't have liked him either. But I could have set that aside, and let him do gestalt work with me, if I'd ever had the opportunity. I found many good gestalt teachers to learn from, some more gentle and loving than others.
>Would you please give me as clear a definition and explanation as you can of what the term "hermeneutics" means to you? I've asked a couple of cognitive therapists to explain that term, years ago. But I was never able to catch on.
>Best wishes. I do care about you, man, as an individual person. And I wish for your greater harmony, and peace.
>John
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Well, I guess this is enough for today's class, Folks. I'm a little tired and it's well on into the evening. It's not a particularly good place to break this
exercise off—sort of leaves things hanging, in suspense, so to speak. Bruce and I *do* work our way through this entanglement. I'll tell you that in
advance.
And please, please, all of you students, try to remember what I told you before. When this whole story is told, I am the one who is the villain of this
over-all drama, and not Bruce. But that doesn't matter, for our purposes here, as we are only trying to gain a little experience seeing what a few
different personality types look like, and hear, if we can, a few of the tones of what they *sound* like.
See you all after the weekend. "V" — Peace.
Coach
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