Classroom Talk
Fall 2002 Archive
Being relaxed, and working a sticky conversation through. Posted by John on October 15, 2002 at 18:38:34:
I think you and I are being careful and caring companions together on a remarkable path to some valuable learning here, as we continue this
conversation, Eddie.
I have to keep in mind, as we go along, the specific points that I am attempting to teach. One of these is the extreme value of being able to be
completely relaxed together as we continue.
We are living out Student John's hypothetical of a week ago. We are the two warriors he brought up, who are each coming from our Essence, even
though there is score on the scoreboard.
I haven't read your four new Tuesday postings of today, Eddie. I saw they're posted there, but I haven't opened them yet, on purpose. So my
comments today will be entirely based on the way the dynamics of our conversation stood as of our peaceful exchange of remarks last Friday, and
after your long (and excellent!) posting on Monday.
And then I am going to get to be surprised, so to speak, by what is the person doing here now?. After I've finished this class today, I'll look in and
see what you are doing in that last flurry of postings that you just put up today. And I'll see where that seems to take the dynamics of our
conversation next.
Is that clear? Last Friday, I shared that I had not felt wounded by your recent remarks to me, and that I didn't see how you got that idea from my
last long posting to you. You even thought you might be risking your friendship with me, the way the conversation was going. I hoped to reassure
you completely about that.
You had expressed that you had stopped, and slowed down, and realized it was going to take a great deal of care on your part to compose a way of
communicating to me the next time. I think we can agree that we are living through a generally mixed-up situation, a situation in which each of us
seems to be having some profound lack of understanding of the other. It is just another "sticky conversation" that ordinary people may have with
each other at any time.
>That's cool, and the time frame is working well for me as well, for a change. He He He. Maybe I'm getting a little better on sidestepping the "O'l Bucking Bronco" mode I've been so 'famous" for in the past. Cheers
Wow! I was delighted with this communication. "The time frame is working well for me as well, for a change."
Notice that the time of what you are saying here is in the present. And it is "work . . . ing." It's going on. There is movement happening in the
present in this communication. And it's a *change*. Seeing change is what it's all about . . . in transformative work (and, parenthetically, in all
psychotherapies and personal growth trainings, as well.) I would say that change is happening in you, Eddie, even here in these present moments as
you are speaking. And you laugh, out loud, about it! You are being "cheers"-ful!!!
Not only are you getting some movement and change in that old bing-bing-bing "running too fast" pace that sometimes takes over your body in the
course of your life (i.e. the "bucking bronco"), that change (or, *the start of that change*) is *manifest* in the way you are communicating here about it.
You're not just talking about it, you're *doing* it, you're *living* it! We can experience you being calm. We know that you are *experiencing* the calm
that you are expressing from the way that you are saying it. The music of it has an obvious sound of authenticity.
I hope not only you, but everyone here in class is able to learn by observing and studying this. And, please take note of this: after the way I spoke
with you in my last previous post, reassuring you that I am not rejecting you, and you responded to me like this with this post . . . . . . what do you
know, Eddie? We appear to be completely relaxed with each other together at this point.
Now this is one of my teaching points in these days. If two people can manage to become completely relaxed with each other, they are in the best
possible position to collaborate in an effort to find mutual understandings in the midst of the misunderstandings that had been going on.
I am saying that people often aren't understanding each other. This is a cause of innumerable sticky situations daily, and hurt feelings, and wounding
engagements between people. That is a way it *normally* is between people in the ordinary human condition. However, I am coaching a deliberate
strategy for a player of the awareness game to use in addressing this observeable factor then, a strategy of recognizing the causes of
misunderstandings between people, AND cultivating a deliberate communication style of intentional authenticity, that is, by honestly making efforts at
being more and more clear and easily understandable . . . . . (while—as you all will remember—being careful, at the same time, not to be wounding
other people in the way you speak about it.
Seeing that we seemed to be at such peace together, Eddie, I was able to relax over the week-end and not feel hurried to say anything more to you
then either. You'd be surprised perhaps that my mind is sometimes racing during the weekends over stuff that is happening in class. I get score on my
scoreboard, too. And, don't forget that I too have that Student-Believer "bucking bronco" in my own make-up, as well. So, I can fall into personality
on my side of any issue, too, get anxious about it, and find my Self racing, racing, racing in my thinking mind where there is score on my own
scoreboard.
Thanks to your able (that is, healing) communication last Friday, I was able to relax completely about it. I admired the way you said you recognized it
was going to take real care on your part to find ways to address my misunderstandings about you. I was glad you shared that you realized that, and
I dearly hoped you would follow up on it. By Monday you had done so, and—as a coach, as well as a person—I was very pleased with the careful
efforts that you have made.
First of all, in "Re: Not about" on October 14, I find what I *feel* are the best pages of writing that I've ever seen you do around here. As a piece of
quality writing, the *music of it* works really great for me. It's a lot easier to read than usual. There seems to me to be "a quantum leap" going on here
in this piece. This really does seem to me to be "a new you" talking. There is much experience-sharing. You are being very clear and easily
understandable. It flows! It teaches us who you really are. It addresses things about me from your own experiential perspective and doesn't put me
in a box. Telling us who *you* are is *enough*! For instance, this is a really, really great sentence:
>My intentions were never to rewrite your program.
It is short. It is to the point. It is your experience. It is clear. It is understandable. It is who you are.
I believe it. I understand that.
But there appears to be a little misunderstanding of what I was talking about when I brought that up--shortcomings of my own communiation with
you. You said:
>I had a hunch, no a strong premonition that you would pull out of context this sentence where I carelessly misrepresented "The Not-So-Kind-Helper." as a personality type there at first.
That's interesting. So you had a hunch that was going to "get a rise out of me," as they say. You intuited that I might react to that. And that intuition
was right!
You don't seem to have understood that the intent of my position then—rather than reacting to you—was to be responding to you! Or so I thought I
was doing at the time. But I obviously didn't explain that clearly.
I *liked* what you did. I didn't give enough explanation of what I was meaning to say at the time—that I liked what you did in "inventing that type."
I wasn't clear enough about my message there. Something seemed to be at cross-purposes there in what I actually said to you.
I liked your invention of the Not-So-Kind-Helper very much! It was artistically creative on your part, as an independent effort to characterize your
own behavior with a "nickname," so to speak. I felt sure you didn't just make up some meaningless name, but were expressing a nickname that you felt
somehow caught the reality of it in some kind of pattern that you were beginning to recognize in the flow of your own overall behavior.
In short, I felt the nickname "Not-So-Kind-Helper" meant something real to *you*, something that you had been able to spot. And—even though that
isn't one of the eight types in the wheelbook—I felt that you would be able to use that type-nickname that you had invented for doing some real
transformative work on your Self. In other words, I was supporting you in that. I was being responsive to it. I was saying: "That'll work, Eddie.
Go ahead and do it that way!"
Now the way that I played with you around this subject was bound to be confusing. I see that now. I wish I'd had "a hunch" that that would be
confusing for you. But I didn't wake up on it at the time. I might have realized, "Eddie's not going to be able to understand what I'm saying here,
because I'm playing around with words and not just saying what I mean.
An important technical point here is that the types in our wheelbook are not sacrosanct. They are a good breakdown of the overall scope of human
personality, I think. But there are other such break-downs of human personality in other diagnostic systems. And the types in those systems work,
too. And I was trying to say to you that even an independent (Rebel) fellow like you, could make up a new designated type on his own that would
work fine in doing transformative work. That is, if you see some kind of a pattern in the idea of "the Not-So-Kind-Helper" that you recognize as
recurring in your life, you could adopt studying that as a legitimate work task, and go on observing your life and studying your life, and identifying
and listing the specific characteristics that you recognize as fitting with that Not-So-Kind-Helper context that you invented . . . . . and you could work
productively in that way, too.
It didn't matter that it was a different label than the labels in our wheelbook. If you would create a new type that you could actually recognize in the
daily flow of your own behavior when you would wake up and spot it, that would be *just as good* as using the Judge, or the Rebel, or the types
used in the awareness game. That's what I was tryng to get across at that time. All I was really meaning to get across in all of my remarks on that
subject was: "If you'd rather make up your own named type for working with that actual stuff that you have recognized in high relief, that will work
out just as well for you as the wheelbook types . . . if you go ahead and do it." I might have said, "You can be a Rebel and do it your own way that
way if you prefer, and that will work out just fine in this class, too!"
In other words, I wasn't trying to get you not to use "the Not-So-Kind-Helper" as a type for doing this work. I was actually trying to encourage you
to go ahead and use that invented type, and I was trying to coach you how you could make using that work fine for you.
Not only that, but I really *liked* the sound of "Not-So-Kind-Helper." That sounded to me like a neat nickname for a personality type that would
work *great* as a waker-upper for the type of conditioned behavior that it circumscribed. What I mean is that, from a purely artistic point of view, the
type name that you invented seemed to have a good ring to me! I wasn't lying when I said I enjoyed your invention of that name very much! I was
telling the truth when I said that was a "great moment" for me in the class. It was an unusual thing to happen. I admired your creativity here. And I
got a kick out of being in a position to be able to say, "Hey! Do it your own way!!! You don't have to use the wheelbook types. Make up your own
types for your daily practice, and, if you know what they mean, that'll work just fine." . . . . . . Because, that's one aspect of the kind of a guy that I
am, as a coach. I like to have you students here be as free as you possibly can be.
Now maybe I made much too big a deal out of it, in calling attention to the fact that inventing your own type would seem to fit the patterns of the
independent Rebel on our wheel, Eddie. But you *knew me after all*! You intuited that I would do that. You knew that was going to get some kind
of a rise out of me. I hope you can understand now where I was coming from when I wrote that stuff on that topic. It was just a common sort of
misunderstanding, back and forth between both you and me.
And the fact that I was less than clear about it, didn't pause and make sure there was a better chance you could understand what I was intending to
say to you then, says to me, de facto, that I was being in personality then. Now, this is something for me to sit with!
So there was some ego-driven personality in it somehow, that I was being less than clear and understandable to you then. Okay, let's admit it! There
must have been some reaction of my own Rebel in it. I finally see that now! I wasn't aware at the time, but I must have felt rejected to some degree in
that situation. I must have had *some kind of personality reaction* going on, per se, if I had to be talking to you in a way that was so *hard to
understand* that way.
Hee hee. Maybe I *did* think you were trying to "re-write my program," Eddie. But I get it now, clearly, that you had no such intention at all. —
Yeah, that's it!!! It's coming home to me *right now*. I did that "song and dance" with you because I was feeling rejected right then. How about that?
Hee-hee. Thanks for helping me see it! Hey, I'm glad we talked this over. I would probably never have caught on to that one by myself. What a
good thing it is that we can be completely relaxed together to communicate about things like this with each other! And, what a great thing it is to be in
a position to be able to be accomodating with each other, as we go along! — I had said:
>Becoming clearer is a great way to cut down on the scores that come up on our scoreboards.
You said:
>Yes again I agree unequivocally, and speaking only from "High Ideals" of course, as a direct Awakening to Mindfulness ones personality would be as a clear mirror to be reflecting ones pure essential being in this world. But for a man that tends to take the less Enlightened stance as a simple man known to us here simply as Coach or John these ideas seem very advanced to me being yet such a mechanical man so to speak.
Yes, that's so. These are the most advanced ideas that I can conceive of in coaching the awareness game these days. I'm trying to get as much into
our curriculum as possible, while I can. And you are modest. They are ideas that can only be put into practice a little bit at a time through one's life, by
those who are cultivating mindfulness.
From my perspective here in the Sixth Grade of this class, I am being able to be coaching with you Folks now from the most advanced front edge of
the technology that I know how to be coaching about. I've discussed this with pride with Perk and other friends who knew my work in the old days
before I began attempting this on-line experiment.
Yet it cannot all be learned at once. And from the standpoint of you students in this class, the strategies I am teaching may seem largely theorectical.
The only way their realizeable practicality can be found out is by identifying exercises that you take a liking to, actually trying them out and putting
your heart into it, and seeing what happens, seeing what your experiences are.
If much of this seems beyond you today, keep working on cultivating mindfulness in your life. And if you are cultivating mindfulness at all, today and
tomorrow, and the next day, there are some moves already in the play of the awareness game which are not beyond you in these days. Finite
individual moves of the awareness game are no more difficult than any of the finite individual exercises in the Kindergarten. Pick any exercise, or pick
any move of this game, and jump in with it into your life, and put it into play!
A good one for possibly any of you in this class to be working on nowadays might be just practicing being present in there behind those eyes while
you are in the presence of other people, without doing anything else, so far. (Go back to that "Overlooked Exercise" class earlier this semester for
instructions for this exercise) *After getting good at doing this*, all of the rest of the moves of the awareness game ought to be accessible to you, at
least trying them out one at a time as you go along practicing new ones.
Putting these ideas into active mindful play, even in the smallest ways, is the way of getting a life of being mindfully strategic like this started. And the
strategies of this game are simply aiming at becoming more and more able to wake up and choose to play on purpose for peace and for harmony, if
one ever wishes to, whatever occasions and even adverse circumstances may bring.
I said:
>I think I understand you to be saying that you want to keep your personality "aggressively" charged to face the challenges of life around you.
You responded:
>Sorry Coach, this was in "no way" what I had intended to be saying. Let me try and be very simple here. Life makes personality aggressive, while this type of "Work" as well as others {{{has the potential}}} to make personality passive so that ones essence can begin to be expressed and even grow.
Ah, I see exactly what you're saying. And it's great to be completely relaxed with you and talking over misunderstandings this way.
>The personality can become clearer and yes even a more passive vessel for essence to be expressing itself through. So Coach unlike what I have understood you to say, I say we must have personality for our essence to express itself "through", while its existence remains in this human form in this body on this earth anyway.
Yes, that's a very compelling point, Eddie! Except for those who become "Perfect Masters," personality does remain in this human form in this body on
this earth anyway! Yeah! That's a new one for me to sit with like a brick in my lap, and already I agree with you. . . . . . . . However, I'm not sure our
respective sets of intellectual terms for expressing about this cannot somehow be blended harmoniously with each other, after all. Lots of mystics use
the metaphor of personality as the wood that has to be present and burned for the light of the fire to appear. — In other words, don't do away with
the wood, or you won't have any fuel for the fire of transformative work. And, as you point out, the wood is here anyway, as much so in me, the
Coach, as we see, as in any of you students, as we see.
Now, for most of your last page here in your Monday posting yesterday, you have expressed in pretty clear language your over-all theory of
Personality and Essence. I seem to understand some of it. And I seem to not understand some of it.
Like you earlier, I feel I need to be careful in responding to the things that you have to say here. I'm not clear what the actual, tangible "problem" is
for you in the way that I'm formulating this model. I see and understand that you admire much of this game,and much of the way I'm coaching this
class. But I sense you seem to feel there is some problem for you in the awareness game model. Like you, I sense an appropriateness in not just
rushing on ahead wildly, like a horse jumping the corral fence and running off into the desert. We can respect each other, I'm sure, in adopting this
slowed-down carefulness in discussing things like this in a relaxed setting. I'll reply on this, but not until I feel more able to do so more clearly.
Meanwhile, I'll be sitting with this part of your communiation like a brick in my lap for awhile.
>Well now I guess you understand why I was prepared to just drop the whole thing and keep my mouth shut. And if I go ahead and post this could very likely regret it.
Gee, I'm feeling glad that you *have* posted this, Eddie! It seems to show a leap in the direction of the very things I'm wishing to be coaching you
about. Whatever it is that you are thinking about posting this piece, I know of nothing whatsoever, from my side of things, that might happen in me
that might cause you to regret having posted it.
Yet I'm sure this is a powerful uneasiness in you, here, Eddie. The way you express it here near the end of your communication seems to convey a
powerful uneasiness in you, somehow. Might this be an uneasiness at anticipating rejection by me? I don't know. What is your experience with this?
What do you see happening in your thinking that you would regret with such powerful uneasiness?
>Well I know I have not in anyway touched on anything like all your points, but I'm feeling grounded, and keeping my knees loose and not being aggressive or being passive in or around it all.
That's great. Actually you are touching on all of my points of late, those points having to do with normal human misunderstanding, having to do with
being authentic and being inauthentic, having to do with intellectual vis-a-vis experiential communication, and with softening expression and making
conscious efforts to be clear and understandable, yet not being wounding, and, of course, the value of being able to be completely relaxed together, in
examining and attempting to understand what we have to say to each other, and continuing to address each other with authenticity as the
communicating goes on from here. All of these points seem to me to be being addressed in the things we are saying to each other here.
And in this last point you mention, "not being aggressive or being passive in or around it all," that seems to me to tie in precisely with that exercise I
recommended to you the other day—seeing if you can spot a situation where you *might be becoming very reactive* and doing your best not to be
putting yourself down, and not to be rejecting the other person, either. So far, so good!
But we are all only human. And that's what we are supposed to be studying in this class, Eddie. We are not studying "being perfect" here. There's
still plenty of wood in all of us to be burned in this process and make more light. We are here to study what it is to be human.
Now, I am going to post this class. And it looks like I'm going to be out of town on a trip that I have to take tomorrow, and I may have to be gone
Thursday and Friday, as well. Ironically, I may get the day off on next Sunday, so I may be able to post another full class then.
After I post this class, an hour after sunset on Tuesday here, I'm going to have some supper. And then I'm going to take a look at those four new
posts you just put on the board today, Eddie. Since it's four of them, all at once, you might suppose I'd be wondering if that bronco may have jumped
the fence again.
In the past, we've gotten into a couple of sticky conversations here on the board, you and I. I'm pretty sure that you remember that. And we
worked our way through it together—in my sense of it anyway—and have gone on to become even better colleagues in this work, and friends. Don't
you feel the same? And so it will be this time, as well. You'll see. If you will neither put yourself down, nor reject me, we will go even farther
together in our comradeship . . . neither of us perfect, both of us human, and each of us with an experimental method to try.
And even if you don't hear from me again until next Sunday, you can rest assured that means that I am having the wherewithall to go on being
completely relaxed in relating with you at this time, Eddie, and hoping you find the wherewithall to go on being that way with me.
Great job in this Monday posting. I'm feeling proud of you. Take this at face value, because it's true.
Coach
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