Directing the Power of Conscious Feelings- Living Your Own Truth

by Clinton Callahan

  ASSUMPTIONS, EXPECTATIONS AND RESENTMENTS

  Assumptions, expectations and resentments are related. It all starts with assumptions. Assumptions are like beliefs, in that (1) any person can make any assumption about anything, and (2) there is no connection between an assumption and reality. It is a trick of the mind. We whip up our own delusion and then we think it is true.

  There is a great scene in the first Jackie Chan Rush Hour movie. Jackie has flown to America from Hong Kong to help with a police investigation, but he doesn’t say anything when he arrives so his new partner assumes he can’t speak English. When it is finally revealed that Jackie Chan does speak English and has been listening in on his partner’s conversations all along, his partner angrily blurts out, “I assumed you did not speak English!” Jackie looks him calmly in the eyes and replies, “I am not responsible for your assumptions.”

  Bingo! Nobody else can be responsible for the assumptions under which you operate.

  And if you do make an assumption, it is natural to expect it to be true. This is how an assumption becomes an expectation. An expectation is a solidified assumption.

  For example, let’s say that you assume your partner will remind you to take out the garbage on the night before garbage day. Then, since the assumption is in your mind, you regard your assumption as the truth. If your assumption is true, then you expect your partner to remind you. If they fail to meet your expectation, you conclude that your failure to bring out the garbage is their fault. In your mind, they betrayed you. This betrayal is the reason behind your resentment.

  A resentment is your story (supported with evidence!) that your partner betrayed you by failing to fulfill your expectation. It just stabs you in the heart, doesn’t it? Resentment is feeling betrayed by having an expectation that is not fulfilled.

  But you are the source of the assumption upon which your expectation was based, so you arranged the whole betrayal yourself. It is not your partner’s fault at all. The whole deal is your fault. If you did not make that assumption you would not have had an expectation with which to arrange the betrayal, and then there would be nothing to support your resentment. It is all your creation.

  What is your purpose for doing all that?

  What is your payoff for arranging a strategic betrayal to substantiate a resentment?

  What does the resentment give you?

  Answers to these questions reveal the workings of your own personal underworld.

  Having even one small resentment is enough to block intimacy in a relationship. When you are near the person you resent, or even think of them, you no longer perceive the authentic person as they are. All you perceive is your resentment about that person projected onto them as if they were a movie screen.

  So what does the resentment actually give you? It gives you a wall to block intimacy.

  Why would you go to such lengths to create a wall to block intimacy with someone you supposedly want intimacy with?

  Because you are afraid of letting yourself be seen.

  It is your Box, actually. Your Box is afraid to let someone closer to you than the edges of your Box. If they did come closer they would turn around and see that your entire personality is just a show, a performance. They would see that your mask is not authentically you and the Box’s game would be up. The Box thinks that it could then no longer protect you with its mechanical defense strategies. Someone would be inside your castle walls. This, of course, is what your heart and soul have actually been longing for, but it freaks out your Box. The Box has not been trained. It has not been assured that it still has a place even when you are intimate beyond its ability to control. Out of fear for its own survival the Box arranges for you to experience feeling betrayed to protect its high status in your world.

  Resentments are an aspect of Box Technology that you could have been learning about since childhood. Back then it would have been easy. Your internal sensors could have been developing for years. By now you would easily be able to detect the Box’s tendency to resent, and special energetic muscles could have been strengthened for making movements to avoid the Box’s assumptions and expectations. By now you have believed the correctness of your Box’s resentments for so long that even hinting at bringing them into question seems earth-shattering. Clearing a resentment would make you a heretic in your own church!

  Soon we will explore how to clear resentments. Then you can do the experiment of being more intimate than your Box allows while assuring your Box that it is still loved and that it will be okay afterward. The point now is to recognize that in daily life you make many, many unconscious assumptions, even about things you never suspected you could make assumptions about.

  The quantity of assumptions you continuously make is astonishing. It is quite a useful exercise to make an in-depth inventory of the assumptions you are making.

  For example, you might assume that the person across from you likes you or does not like you, wants to talk with you or does not want to talk with you, wants to know about you or does not want to know about you, wants to be with you or does not want to be with you. You might assume that you will succeed or you will not succeed, that things will be the same tomorrow as they are today or that they will be different tomorrow, that there is a reason to live or that there is no reason to live, that what you could do or say would make a difference or would not make a difference, that it is important to try to make a difference or useless to try to make a difference, and so on.

  The list of assumptions is endless, and also important, because you might be making many false assumptions that you assume are true assumptions. You might also be basing your life decisions on your own false assumptions. The invitation here is to learn to recognize the sensation of making an assumption so that your assumption making becomes conscious, and also to develop the practice of testing anything that even smells like an assumption to decide if you still want to keep that assumption or not.

  BEING RIGHT OR BEING IN RELATIONSHIP

  A resentment is a fully justified position taken by the Box when it asserts without question that it is right and the other person’s Box is wrong. The righteousness can be recognized in your own arrogant attitude. The real question is, can you admit it?

  At the point of recognizing and admitting that you are holding a resentment toward another person you get to make a choice. The choice is between keeping your resentment and being right about it, or clearing your resentment and having that person back in your life.

  You are choosing between being right and being in relationship.

  For the Box the choice is clear: be right! After all, your Box keeps you safe by blocking against intimacy. But if you decide to choose intimacy your Box does not get to have its way.

  Clearing resentments is high drama, an adult action of communicating with responsible feelings. To the Box, clearing resentments may seem like suicidal self-betrayal. Everything that the Box invests in to sustain its unconscious, irresponsible, Gremlin survival strategy is revealed and disempowered through clearing a resentment. That is why I had to wait so long in this book to talk about this. You will apply everything we have so far been practicing in order to responsibly clear a resentment. Before we begin, though, one more distinction is needed.

  CONFLICT RESOLUTION VS CARING COMMUNICATION

  There is a difference between conflict resolution and caring communication. This distinction turns out to be a key for unlocking resentment, the destroyer of intimacy.

  Most of us carry within our hearts some resentments about other people—especially about our closest friends and colleagues—and almost none of us rid ourselves of these resentments. Either we don’t know how to get rid of resentments, or we don’t want to.

  If you do not want to get rid of a resentment, that is understandable. Resentment comes from an unfulfilled expectation. The Box’s displeasure at having its expectation ignored is justification enough to protect itself against having another expectation ignored by the same person again; therefore, t
he resentment.

  It is logical to think that your resentment will never dissolve until the other person changes their behavior. But the other person’s behavior is measured against your own expectation of how they should have behaved. So your resentment can actually only dissolve when you dis-mantle your own expectation.

  But your resentment is justified! The conflict is the other person’s fault. After all, they disrespected your expectation. To you there is a conflict between what you expected and what they did. Wishing to resolve your resentment you might first think of using conflict resolution techniques: things like mediation, discussion, compromise, negotiation. Or, if you are avant-garde, you might try some form of brainstorming. But neither conflict resolution nor brainstorming techniques will create satisfactory results. This is because dissolving resentment is neither cerebral nor strategic; it is visceral and happens through surrendering the Box’s entire game. There are no possible negotiations. Dissolving resentment is total capitulation.

  From the Box’s perspective, dissolving resentment is certain death. The Box loves resentment because then it can square off against a clearly identified enemy. All of your Box’s familiar defense mechanisms jump into active mode and have permission to do whatever it takes to protect you from this evil adversary. Bye, bye relationship. Hello war.

  Dissolving resentment involves you taking radical responsibility for creating the resentment in the first place:

  Your resentment comes after feeling betrayed. Your resentment’s purpose is to protect you from ever being betrayed by this same person again.

  You felt betrayed when your expectation was unfulfilled.

  Your expectation was based on an assumption.

  You assumed that your assumption was correct.

  But that was merely another assumption you made.

  Anybody can assume anything about anything.

  You assumed something about this other person that was obviously not true, or they would have behaved differently and you would not have been offended.

  Start by identifying the assumption(s) you made. For example, I assumed they would / would not do that. I assumed they would keep their promise. I assumed that by now they knew this about me. I assumed that they sense how I feel. I assumed they were aware of this already.

  Now assume that your assumptions are wrong. Assume that what you thought was true is not actually true.

  Take it one step further. Find the purpose behind why you made your assumptions.

  Find out if your Box made assumptions in order to build resentments with the other person so as to block the possibility of intimacy with them. Consider that your Box strategically concocts such conflicts in order to retain its unquestioned authority in your life.

  Through taking radical responsibility for having created your assumptions and expectations you find perhaps the only effective way to vanish your resentment: to admit your woundedness through caring communication. The way out of war is vulnerability.

  Caring communication is the procedure whereby you step sideways, away from your resentment and you admit your woundedness. You get off your position of being right. You hit bottom by revealing your innermost feelings of fear, sadness, and anger, whatever is driving you to try to avoid intimacy.

  Caring communication means you tell these stories even if you look unprofessional, immature, stupid, silly, weak or childish; even if it proves you are a failure or an idiot.

  While you tell your stories, the other person listens to you and says nothing except to deliver a few completion loops to show that they have heard and compassionately understand how it is for you. The listener asks no questions and gives no justifications, analysis, rescuing or suggestions. There is listening, acceptance, and respect.

  CLEARING RESENTMENT

  Carrying a resentment is like carrying a stinking bucket full of shit rotting you from the inside out. There is no defense for this. If you have resentment, you have no dignity.

  It would have been easier to share your feelings, lose face, be liquid, and look bad when your feelings were fresh. Now they are old and infecting your whole system. Through your own weakness you still carry them with you. You have sacrificed intimacy in order to carry resentment. It is time to admit this.

  If someone wants to be with you, what they get instead is this bucket of festering feelings. You cover it over with a show, an intellectual concept. Clearing your resentment starts with letting your mask fall down and standing in the bucket. Start with: I don’t know . . .

  The intellect is impervious to almost everything but you. Between you and life is your intellect. To get some air you can drill holes through the brick wall of your intellect by revealing confusions. By drilling enough holes the wall can crumble from the inside and life can gush in. It is not that the intellectual construct is negative or bad—it is just false. Someone wants to be with you and you only offer them reasons and concepts from your mind?

  That’s the great thing with relationships—there is a living human being who wants to be with the you that is alive and true no matter what it knows! But what is alive and true does not fit in your intellect. Almost no part of relationship happens in the intellect. If you want closeness, learn to put your intellect aside. To do this, you need the courage to not know who you are. Again, start with: I don’t know . . .

  Your mind has learned to think your feelings away. Now learn to stop doing that. Let your mind be completely overwhelmed with the swirling abundance of feelings that is present in your body. Then admit that you are so wounded that you would rather be in resentment than in vulnerable contact with another human being.

  Your task is to keep going deeper and to share how that is for you. Communicate just as it is, making no sense, in full embarrassment, without explanation, without trying to package your communication to make it understandable. It does not have to be understandable. Admit defeat; crumble into the liquid state; hit bottom and stay there without knowing how. Share your pain; unmask your mechanicality and your helplessness; permit yourself to be known.

  When the other person lets in what you have revealed about yourself, the original communication that you had previously imprisoned behind your resentment is finally expressed, heard, and completed. The message has been received. There is no more energetic charge between the two of you. In this moment a miracle happens. What had only a few moments before seemed to be a solid conflict, mysteriously resolves itself without the actual conflict being addressed at all. Respect this moment. Notice the shift. Do not rush through it. The true cause of the conflict has been dissipated through re-establishing intimacy with caring communication. Often the listener says nothing at all to complete the process. The quality of being with and spacious listening are alone sufficient.

  EXAMPLE OF CLEARING A RESENTMENT

  Detecting a resentment in yourself often begins by noticing that you are in conflict over something. In this example we imagine that the school has sent home a paper with your child saying they are going to give free flu vaccinations to all the students. Your partner seems to agree to this without question, yet something is churning in your guts about it. You don’t say anything but you feel deep resentment that your partner doesn’t mention anything to you about it. The surface manifestation is that you shut down at the dinner table, being harsh and ungenerous with the kids and uncommunicative with your partner.

  MAP OF HOW TO CLEAR RESENTMENT

  World Copyright © 2010 owner Clinton Callahan grants permission to use. www.nextculture.org

  Almost none of us can rid ourselves of resentments. Either we don’t know how, or we don’t want to. The result is a life of loneliness, conflict and war.

  1. Conflicts are natural when you carry resentments.

  2. Resentments are your betrayal stories about your unfulfilled expectations.

  3. Expectations originate in false assumptions.

  4. Expectations are strategic intimacy killers to avoid being hurt.

  Why remove expectations? Becaus
e you are starving for intimacy. Even one small resentment is enough to block intimacy. It seems to you that resentment cannot dissolve until the other person changes their behavior. But you measure their behavior against your expectations. Dismantling the assumption / expectation / betrayal / resentment / conflict chain occurs when you take responsibility for its root cause: your fear of intimacy.

  CLEARING RESENTMENT THROUGH CARING COMMUNICATION

  1. As soon as you sense resentment ask the person you resent if they will meet with you for half an hour so you can take responsibility for blocking the relationship. Ask them to simply listen. Tell them that by the end you will be fine. It may help to read these instructions together out loud as you begin.

  2. Do not worry about how to do this. It cannot be figured out. Start feeling and talking. Use I statements: “I feel angry, sad, scared, glad.” Do not use You statements. “You always . . . ,” “You never . . . ,” “You did this to me . . . ,” “You should . . .”

  3. This is not about them. This is about you giving up your charade, you hitting bottom, you getting off it, you revealing your innermost feelings through admitting why you avoid intimacy. Tell your stories with radical honesty, even if you look unprofessional, immature, stupid, silly, weak or childish, even if it proves that you are a failure or an idiot.

  4. While you tell your stories the other person listens to you and says nothing. Now and then they can deliver a completion loop to show that they compassionately understand how it is for you. The listener asks no questions and gives no justifications, analysis, rescuing or suggestions. There is a space of acceptance, respect and pure listening.

  5. Your task is to keep going deeper and to communicate just how it is for you, in full embarrassment, without explanation, without trying to make it make sense. Admit your defeat. Crumble into the liquid state and stay there without knowing how. Share your pain. Unmask your mechanicality and your helplessness. Let your weak and vulnerable self be known.