6. When the listener lets in what you have revealed about yourself the communication has been completed. Your message has been received when it vanishes and there is no more charge between you.
7. In this moment the resentment mysteriously resolves itself without the conflict necessarily 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 reestablishing intimacy. Often the listener says nothing at all. The quality of being with and spacious listening are alone sufficient.
8. Out of the ashes a phoenix arises. This is a mystery. Let it be that way.
A subtle conflict erupts between you and your partner after dinner about who will clear the table and wash the dishes tonight. It is normally no problem. You notice the unusual conflict energy in you. The red warning light has gone off in your mind. If it was not the dishes, it would have been something else. You are a conflict waiting to happen. The conflict is just a manifestation of something deeper. So you stop it, midsentence.
You say, “Something is going on with me. I don’t know what it is. Could you listen to me for a half hour?”
Your partner says, “Yes, at eight-thirty, in the living room, after the little one is in bed.”
The pain in you is so intense that you feel numb. You would rather explode than wait, but you know that waiting is the right thing to do. So you say, “Okay. Thanks.”
Since you are in a gnarly emotional state you set yourself to doing simple physical tasks in the meantime, such as sweeping the garage, wiping water spots off the chrome and mirrors in the bathroom, scouring the slime off the shower floor, pulling weeds in the garden, picking up toys around the house and putting them away as if they were sacred objects, classifying nails in the workshop, knitting, or hand sewing. This way the time goes by and you do no harm to anyone. It is not the time to go jogging, overeat, drink, eat sweets, or complain to a third person. These are all standard ways to dissipate or stuff away feelings. You will need your feelings.
Eight-thirty comes and you meet. You sit close to each other on the couch. If you have done this before your partner may arrange to have simple physical contact; for example, legs touching. Your partner says nothing and sits waiting attentively. A box of tissues is within reach.
You start out on the wrong foot. “You always make me do the dirty work! I am the one who has to be a problem and disagree with the system. You never really care what they are doing to our kids, do you?”
Your partner interrupts. “I notice that you are using You statements instead of I statements. It might help you to use I statements. I also notice you using words like always and never. These are perfection words that the Box uses to engage in low drama and to block feelings. Please see if you can express what is under these words. I also notice some accusation in your question. This would be a time to take responsibility rather than to accuse. This is a time to explore what is going on for you by using feeling statements. I am listening.”
(Ah, your partner has been reading this book!)
You take a deep breath, center yourself and say, “Okay. Thanks for the feedback. This evening I read the letter from the school about giving our kids flu vaccinations and I felt really scared. I don’t know what it is, but this huge, mindless money-grabbing system could eat our children and not care one bit!” (Tears are rolling down your cheeks but you don’t mind.) “I have been doing some reading online. There are things going on that the mainstream media hides from us. This vaccine letter is from a group of medical doctors owned by large pharmaceutical companies, the ones who make the vaccines. First they make the flu viruses and then they make the vaccines. The population drops off while the pharmaceutical companies make billions. I hate it. I hate it that they would do this to our kids and not care. I hate it that I have to guard my family against the school and the government and the medical professions that are supposedly there to serve us and protect us. And I hate it that I don’t know anything for sure.” (More tears.) “So many people don’t know and just act like stupid sheep doing whatever they are told without question. It drives me crazy with anger and frustration to not be able to just trust. And I need you to connect with me on this and not just go along like the others.”
There is a pause. Your partner is still looking at you, still listening to what you are saying, letting it in, digesting it, saying nothing, being with you with all this. After a moment your partner repeats back, “You need me to connect with you.”
You start again. “Yes!” (Bing!) “I need you to talk with me and think these things through. I am not willing to let my kids be vaccinated by the government and the pharmaceutical industry just because they want to do it. I don’t care what they say. I don’t believe their bullshit. When I was a kid, I got sent to school too. Nobody explained anything to me. Just one day they took me to school and there I was and I didn’t get it. I was so scared and my parents didn’t understand me. I didn’t want to leave my nature play to go sit in chairs with these other kids all day. It was torture, insane. It made no sense. What did I do wrong? My parents, even the teachers, couldn’t understand my questions, so I stopped asking. It seemed like my parents did not really care what the system was doing with me. They were busy with their own lives and all I could do was survive mine. And that’s the point. Our kids are merely surviving, too. They don’t actually get to live their lives now. They must do what the teachers tell them to do and their years are going by. Each day they spend in school is one less day they have to learn what they’ll need to be effective in the coming changes. And I don’t want them vaccinated! I was afraid you would argue with me about this. I was afraid you would not talk with me. I need us to work together. I don’t have any answers. I just feel so scared and frustrated by what’s going on in the world these days. I am so sad that our kids do not have a bright future with plenty of fresh water and healthy oceans and beautiful coral reefs to snorkel around. I am so sad that the tigers and elephants and bears are dying off and going extinct. It is not right. And what can I do to stop it? There is so much going on. Can we talk about this more?”
Your partner says, “You want to talk with me more about this.”
You say, “Yes! But not now. It doesn’t have to be now. I just need to know that you won’t sign this vaccine paper and send it back in. And if the administrators want to know why, I can explain it to them. You don’t have to talk to them about it. Okay?”
Your partner says, “Yes. It’s okay with me, as long as you talk to them. You are right, though. I was not even thinking about this. I won’t sign the paper. Maybe you could write a letter to send in with the kids so they don’t have to try to explain it to their teachers?”
You say, “Yes. I’ll write it now and I’ll explain all this to the kids at breakfast. I feel glad we got to talk. I was really resentful at you for not bringing this up with me. It felt like I was being betrayed by my parents again, getting thrown back into the jaws of the system. Whew, this is big for me!”
At this point, hugs would be appropriate.
USE FEELINGS TO MAKE OR CHANGE BOUNDARIES
Sometimes the action step attached to a feeling is to make or change a boundary. Before you can make a boundary you will first need to experience the distinction that the boundary expresses. When I first started working with distinctions I thought that distinctions occurred in my mind. I thought that if I understood or could explain a distinction then I got the distinction and other people would get it too. I also thought that if I complained loudly enough, blamed severely enough, sulked darkly enough, exploded destructively enough, or went away permanently enough, the other person would get it. Now I think differently. Now I think that a true distinction occurs simultaneously in all four bodies, not only in the intellectual body, and that it is utterly simple: as clean, sharp and well-aimed as a samurai’s blade.
For example, a boundary is a distinction, so making a true boundary is an action that takes place simultaneously in all four bodies
. If the boundary is “No Gremlin feeding in our relationship,” it goes like this:
• The boundary occurs in your physical body as a clear perception of unique domains, distinguishable one from the other, such as: “Low drama Gremlin feeding creates one quality of relationship. High drama love, respect, discovery and intimacy creates an entirely different quality of relationship. I clearly experience the difference. Stop letting your Gremlin feed on our relationship. I am not a plaything of your Gremlin.”
• The boundary occurs in your intellectual body as a communicatable concept, such as: “Gremlin plays I win–you lose games that show up as power struggle, competition for attention, or I’m right–you’re wrong. Adult men and women play Winning Happening games where we creatively collaborate to serve Bright Principles. I am willing to play Winning Happening games with you and nothing else.”
• The boundary occurs in your emotional body empowered by all four feelings, such as: “If my boundary that Gremlin feeding is excluded from our relationship is not tacitly honored, I feel angry because I want it to be upheld. I feel sad because I lose something if it is not respected. I feel scared because other boundaries might not be upheld. And I feel glad because I have clarity about the boundaries I need to make to have the kind of relationship I want with you.”
• The boundary occurs in your energetic body as a declaration of how the world is for you; in other words, as a component of who you are as a being, such as: This boundary is so. It actually exists. When I say, No Gremlin feeding in our family, I mean absolutely none. I am not in any kind of doubt about it. My clarity about this boundary requires neither explanation nor force of command. It just is. That is my boundary, and it is not my problem anymore.”
If a boundary is not simultaneously made in all of your four bodies, it will not function as a boundary. If you think that you have made a boundary and it is not functioning as a boundary (e.g., your partner keeps doing Gremlin behavior with you, your child keeps whining at you, the customer or boss keeps intruding in your space or violating your requests, you keep feeling betrayed by your friends) then you are making boundaries only in theory, not in fact.
RAGE STICK These men are using a special stick and cushion to practice making boundaries with all four bodies, physical, intellectual, emotional and energetic. After practicing a few times the stick transforms into an energetic sword of clarity, carried everywhere and used to make distinctions and boundaries easefully but alertly in daily life.
The Box has full control of your mind. The Box can cause you to forget anything it wants you to forget in an instant and you won’t even notice that you forgot it. A boundary made from the mind is a puff of smoke in a hurricane. Where a boundary first starts becoming solid is when it spreads into your other three bodies.
When you become a boundary in all four of your bodies the other person or persons to whom the boundary applies will instantly and automatically get it in all four of their bodies. For example, many people have reported that when they declare a personal space around their body and become the boundary and then walk through the shopping mall, no one bumps into them anymore. Their personal space is respected unconsciously by all the other shoppers no matter what kind of shopping frenzy they are in. A true boundary is sensed previous to words and ideas.
By the time your boundary occurs in your energetic body you have become the boundary. “Not in my house. Sneaking, flirting, lying, whining, deceiving, Gremlin feeding, these are beneath our dignity. That does not happen here.” Once you become your boundaries they wordlessly shape the quality of the space. They establish the context of the current gameworld and it really cannot happen there. It cannot. The space won’t permit it. High drama will not support there being a situation without someone being at source for the Is-Glued story that creates the situation. Who the source person is for a low drama becomes transparent in a high drama space where you do not agree to fool yourself.
Along these lines, you can develop the habit of making boundaries out at the edge of your territory rather than waiting until the metaphorical enemy is storming your castle gates. If you wait until they are beating down your front door before you make a boundary, it is a little too late. Your hesitation indicates that you have been fogging yourself about what is really going on. Gremlin gets a payoff for procrastination. Gremlin gets to say, “It’s not fair.” “But I didn’t know.” “They are so inconsiderate.” With each complaint Gremlin grants its own license to take immediate revenge in an ordinary low drama. Remember, this is high drama. High drama is not ordinary. High drama is extraordinary. If you try your usual Gremlin behaviors you will crash out of high drama quicker than you can say, “Oh my God! I can’t believe I did it again.”
RAGE STICK Eyes open, looking straight ahead, no one in front of you or behind you, everyone going with you, shouting from deep in your guts before you know what you are going to say. This is how to practice making clear, adult boundaries.
Your adult feelings are the gateway to accessing the masculine and feminine archetypes that are hardwired into your body and have been ready to turn on ever since you were about fifteen years old. The process of initializing your archetypes for your use is called stellating.
RAGE STICK The rage stick and cushion has multiple further uses. It is the way to get your dignity back in the final healing process from childhood abuses, whether they were psychological, emotional, physical or sexual abuses. It is the sword for cutting the childhood connection binding you to your parents, finally freeing you to live your own adult life. And it is part of stellating the high drama warrior and warrioress archetypes. This is an example of High Level Fun!
7. STELLATING FEELINGS
(NOTE TO THE READER: If you have skipped ahead to this chapter without carefully studying the previous six chapters, it’s a clever idea but I don’t recommend it. Learning to consciously feel has similarities to learning to use dynamite, which is actually quite simple. Drill a hole in the stone, tamp in a few sticks with their primers, hook up your wires, and slam home the detonator. But they make you take lessons and get a license before letting you blast with dynamite. It’s for your own good. That’s because if you leave your dynamite sitting too long the nitroglycerin can leak out and explode just by pulling a stick out of the box. If you don’t leave a lightning gap in your wires then static electricity could set off the charge by surprise. You might walk away from your set up thinking everything is fine and, KABOOM! Short fuse... I am not saying anything like this will happen if you skip over the previous chapters. But I am saying that the world of conscious feelings operates under different laws than the world of numbness, just like lighting dynamite is different from lighting birthday candles. Before you try stellating feelings, I strongly encourage you to study the first six chapters of this book. It’s for your own good.)
NINTH DISTINCTION: FEELINGS CAN STELLATE ARCHETYPES
The ninth of the Ten Distinctions for Consciously Feeling says that Phase 1 and Phase 2 of feelings work is part of a formal rite of passage into adulthood that awakens (stellates) archetypal structures and talents that have been lying dormant within you, waiting to be initialized and directed toward fulfilling your destiny.
(I just noticed that nearly every word in the previous paragraph originates beyond the concept limits of ordinary society. Do not be dismayed if almost none of this makes sense at first. The distinctions, maps and tools explained in this chapter are intended to last you a lifetime. Each one is a doorway to further experiences and discoveries. Try to be okay with not necessarily being able to grasp all of it at the first go-round. Instead, get what you can, use what you can, and come back later to get more when you want it.)
Modern human beings are raised to behave as planets but we are designed to be stars. A planet absorbs more energy than it radiates. For example, the Earth would be dead and lifeless without the sun’s energy blasting it 24/7/365. The Earth does not produce enough of its own energy to power the biological experiments it is doing.
A child does its parents no honor by remaining a child.
TECHNOPENURIAPHOBIA (TPP)
The word technophobia was invented in the early 1960s, and means the fear of technology and its effects. In 2006, just four decades later, I had to invent the word technopenuriaphobia, the fear of the lack of technology. We are now so dependent on modern technology that we carry a profound fear of losing it. We are justifiably concerned that without modern technology we would quickly die.
Children today—and I dare say we too—were born and raised high up on a technological ladder of progress. We learned that if we want light in a room, we flick a switch and there is light. If we want it warmer, turn up the thermostat. Cooler? Turn on the air-conditioning. Food? Get it from the refrigerator, freezer, cans, fast food joints, or grocery stores. Entertainment? MP3s, CDs, DVDs, or surfing the Net. Talk to someone? Use our cell phone. Go somewhere? Take a car, plane, or train. Garbage? Drop it in the trash can. We dedicated ourselves to working toward the good life: total comforts, total easefulness, totally supported by technology. It is all so easy, fast and clean. But . . . if it breaks down? (When it breaks down . . .) The fading mirage reveals our weaknesses. Without modern technology we can no longer survive on our birth planet.
Directing the Power of Conscious Feelings- Living Your Own Truth Page 25
