I have a new downstairs neighbor, after three whole years of no neighbor: that apartment sat empty.
I got used to no noise, no energies, silence… and now, suddenly I need to get used to a new configuration, energetically.
I don’t want to… baaaaah! lol
The new tenant is the landlord’s cousin, and though I have been tolerated thus far, so far for 16 years, I have only been a source of income for the landlord, not a person. Now I am someone who lives in THEIR house… at least that is how I translate her attitude towards me. A bother…
So I find myself, suddenly, needing my own course, the Playground. Now I am not just leading it, I am also a participant/client.
This situation is all about me… that is one of the wake-up questions you need to answer in the script: to what degree, what is happening, is about you. It is all about me.
I find myself feeling fear, really terror, I haven’t felt in years… I wake up when there is noise downstairs, or I can’t fall asleep: I am afraid. Very familiar from a long time ago…
Hm.
Of course there are plenty of earlier similar incidents this brings up. Hell yeah… my life used to be full of such incidents. Being afraid to sleep, waiting for the boogie man… whatever shape or form it takes… my mother, my father, my brother, my teachers, my neighbor, my landlord. Beating me bloody… or throwing me out… or who knows what else they could do to me.
It is hard to believe that I am so afraid of people: I don’t act it out. But I am and I have been… forever…
Is it them? No, it is me. I have this worldview I have nearly forgotten in the past three safe years, that the world is a dangerous place, that I am going to get killed, it’s going to hurt, and there is nothing I can do about it.
I am not much different from you…
You have no idea how your behavior lands on your environment, your children, for example. And you have no idea what they say to themselves about themselves, about you and about the environment you provide.
Almost every participant in the Playground is manifesting symptoms of having been treated in such a way that left them bruised, afraid, and smaller than they need to be.
In one of the Landmark Education programs, I don’t recall which leadership program it was, you are likened to a dragon. A dragon has a front and a tail… dogs are like that too… Unaware of their tails. Only aware of the area of life, the part of themselves, that they can see… the front. And it is hard to be responsible for what you cannot see…
So the tail sweeps stuff off furniture that break, or the tail hurts people, animals, plants.
Getting aware of the dragon’s tail has been a huge intellectual task for me. So far I managed to be aware of it 70% of the time. Meaning: I still have “tail-effect” that is unintended, careless, thoughtless, hurtful, and hinders my work.
Getting aware of yourself and your effect on others, on your life, on the future you create is, or should be Awareness 101… but when I do people’s Starting Point Measurements, the highest number I have ever gotten, was 30%… for a grand total of five people… out of hundreds.
It seems that it is hard for people to include other people in their cone of vision. Either because they can’t give a hoot, or because they are so busy being in their heads.
There is an exercise in the Landmark Education Forum, where you sit in the midst of a class, and the Forum Leader brings your attention to what degree you are afraid of people… of the person sitting next to you, of the leaders, of the people in your life.
Then the Forum Leader turns it around, and sheds light to what degree those same people are afraid. Afraid of YOU. Little old you… Most people get giddy… I don’t quite get what’s so joyful about that… To me that is horrifying… people getting scared of me. It is even harder for me to bear than my own fear.
You are so locked into your looking only from behind your eyeballs, you have no idea that you are terrifying people.
I am a scary person… very opinionated, it is my Virgo nature.
I guess you have no idea how you come across…
You have a self-image that is likely completely delusional…
It is not just self-awareness… this is part of your overall awareness: getting your outside view: how you show up to others.
It’s been very hard for me to see that I scare people… given how scared I am on the inside.
There is a cognitive dissonance… that I think is not as rare as it sounds.
You have no idea how you show up to others… you have no idea what your dragon tail does to people, to your family, to your coworkers, to your teachers, to your colleagues.
Start paying attention. You’ll be surprised. And maybe, hopefully, horrified.
Get out of the bull’s ear, get out of your head… and observe. And once you see it, stay out there… You’ll find out that the closer those two views are, the self-image and the public-image, the more successful you can become. The more your children dare to love you, the better your relationships will be.
The smaller the gap between
how you think you should be and how you are,
how others react to you and how you feel you deserve to be treated,
the less attention you’ll have on yourself,
the more harmony you’ll experience in your life, and the better will be your life experience.
When you accomplish that, results will be easier to produce, because more of you will be available to produce those results.
And, for most people, more results equal more self-love… and a whole less self-hate or self-pity.
The closer your self-image and your public image get, the less effort you’ll need to invest to protect your self-image… the less disharmony you’ll have in your life.
If you are a selfish/self-centered bastard, you may not know you are! and trying to maintain a public image as a nice guy, or a victim, it will eat up all your energy.
- If you are a dumbshit… same thing
- If you are smart but don’t know it… same thing
- If you make mistakes: you can make peace with yourself… it is no big deal
- If you are a sissy… same thing. no big deal… who said everyone needs to be a hero? You did! The world is a lot more forgiving than you give it credit to.
You don’t have to, don’t need to be different than you are… even though you want to, and think you should.
It may work to change how you are… Workability is the most important reason you may attempt to change certain things you do, certain things about your attitude and behavior. But you don’ have to… You don’t need to.
You can.
PS: you may think you know yourself, you may think you know how you show up in the world. Be prepared to be surprised. Better yet, be willing to be surprised.
I was on youtube just a few minutes ago, and the ad in front of the video I wanted to rewatch was for a masterclass lead by Joyce Carol Oats.
She said: if you are a writer, this resonates with you. What? I said. Because it resonated. And I promptly started to cry. Massive heart pain… WTF?
You don’t know your own heart. I don’t fully know my own heart.
Today I learned a little bit more… Hurts? So what. That is who I am… that is how I am.
Unfulfilled futures hurt more than mistakes we’ve made.
