Sundar, I salute you for having the courage to share your feelings about the response to this post and previous posts. I agree with your assessment, in the past there have been occasions of snarky responses on the board.

But I like your shift from thinking to feeling your feelings, and having the courage to speak them on the board. After all, feeling is what this journey is all about. And it takes courage to examine and acknowledge hurt feelings publicly! Yay, congratulations, more power to you for that step!

Having said earlier that we should focus on our journey, I am going to break the rule. Because I feel a kinship to you, because in some ways, we are similar – we are both thinkers.

You are a very smart guy. I have been in awe of your ability to quote chapter and verse from Gary’s teachings. You are amazing. But I think perhaps I would also be right in saying you are in a very high percentile on your thinking capacity. Sometimes, I have had difficulty in understanding and keeping up with your thoughts. So. Sometimes, silence may be because I at least have not been able to keep up with your thoughts. Just one of the downfalls of being very smart.

But my second observation is that the work that Gary talks about us doing is a lot more focused on feelings. Feeling our feelings. Asking the why, and the why underneath the why of feelings.

I remember in my own journey, being told, your best thinking got you here. Is it not time, pardon my French, to stop the mental masturbation, giving thinking a rest and putting, as Gary says, a different player (feeling, and specifically, a different feeling) on the field?

We all want to be loved, to feel capable of being loving, and to belong. The pain comes when one of these wants is obstructed. I totally agree that snarky comments (or it could be what you or I see as snarky comments) would not make you feel loved, loving, belonging.

In a situation like that, we have two options – fight or flee. Some may flee, shut down, leave. But not me, no sir! I am a fighter. I will think, find strong arguments, debate, send email memos… as to why the other person is wrong. And boy, can I make superior arguments that the other person cannot respond to?! I am sooo sooo good at that! I win the battle, and it gives me a temporary respite, feeling of being in control. But I have just once again lost the war to becoming more loved (who can love someone who is argumentative and always wins?), I lose the war to becoming more loving, I lose the war of belonging.

What I am trying to learn now is putting a different player on the field. Courage, courage to see the same scenario playing out again and again in various time/areas of my life, courage to see my role in these scenarios, courage to learn a new skill (most recently, I am learning the art of asking questions – why the other person did or said what they did, rather than assuming an intent (thinking again!)). Acceptance of where I am, of my role in all this. And peace, faith that as I learn new skills that my spiritual partners have come to teach me, I am getting better, and that one day soon I will be loving, loved, lovable, belong.

So here is my challenge to you. Your response cannot quote anything Gary or anyone else says. Your response to this has to be an examination of your feelings – this is what I feel, this is when I felt this before, this is a new skill I am learning in response to this situation… you can do this in your own mind. Does not have to be on the board. May even be better to do this privately in your comfy space, with perhaps a coach/ trusted spiritual partner if you have one.

I apologize as I recognize that the above is a mix of sharing my learning, and an attempt to direct your journey. But I hope you can see my intention is to help.

Love to all,
Shelley

Shelley,

Secondly, you have asked me to try to put a different player in the field. My response happens to be embedded in the following that I posted earlier:
“You have made good points. To add to them, let us imagine for a second that Gary had taken the same stand as suggested by Doug – let us imagine that he refrained from sharing his ideas in his wonderful books after assuming that his frightened parts were probably making him feel superior to everybody else. What would be the consequence? Unimaginable as far as I am concerned! Because of the impact of his books on me in my life.”

Yes, there is no doubt in my mind that the consequence would be unimaginable as far as I am concerned. It happens to be a very long story – the story of how my frightened parts have played havoc in various ways in my life, especially basically destroying the relationship between me and one of my closest blood relations; the story of how Gary’s teachings have meant to me and how I attempted to apply them; the story of how the Universe has played Its role, making totally unexpected things to happen in mysterious ways, strengthening my trust in It moment after moment; the story of how the relationship between me and that closest blood relation is springing back and flourishing again slowly (I am right here in his place as I am typing this, and last evening, for example, I had such a wonderful time during our conversations as we were driving back together after a vacation, the rest of the family driving in another car); and the story of how various other changes have been taking place around me. The whole credit goes to Gary, as far as I am concerned, for helping me try to understand what this life is all about! I cannot write the details of my long, long story here, but, the Universe willing, if an opportunity arises, I will share them with you in person. That is all I can say now.

With love and trust,
Sundar

Dear Shelly and Sundar,

This exchange has inspired me to look more closely at my intention towards the forum and how I am responding. There are so many thoughts and emotions that I feel as I read your various posts and I want to only create from love in any post I make. I know I have opted for a frightened approach from time to time that says “when in doubt say nothing”. As I sit here now I don’t believe for me that is really challenging the frightened part of my personality by just saying nothing.

I feel I am exercising proactive love when I intentionally walk into areas of my life where I know my fears are strong. I dropped out of this forum for a while because I believed I was mostly posting from a frighten part of my personality. I came back to proactively challenge that fear. I know now that it might get messy sometimes meaning I might trigger someone else by my post or their post might trigger me strongly. My intention is to do my best and learn about myself. If I am being a spiritual partner I say what my intuition leads me to and I listen to what is coming to me as valuable for my journey.

Thank you both for supporting my journey.

With Love and Gratitude,

Doug

Shelley,

In further response to your loving post where you wrote:
“Sundar, I salute you for having the courage to share your feelings about the response to this post and previous posts. I agree with your assessment, in the past there have been occasions of snarky responses on the board.
…
I apologize as I recognize that the above is a mix of sharing my learning, and an attempt to direct your journey. But I hope you can see my intention is to help.”

There is no doubt in my mind that your intention is to help.

I just noticed this morning that Gary has posted a Q/A video on The Difference between Discernment and Judgement. I had asked him a question on this sometime toward the end of August last year, and I am sooooo happy to find his beautiful answer this morning. If you have not already done so, please watch the video.

In my opinion, the subtle difference between these two seems to be of the same kind as in the case of reaction vs response, happiness vs joy, caretaking vs caregiving, and pain vs suffering. In each case, the former is from the point of view of the frightened parts or from a five sensory perspective whereas the latter is from the point of view of the loving parts or from a multisensory perspective. It appears that during one’s interactions with others it is essential for one to perform a correct discernment about them, but of course without judging them.

When I said “there seems to be something fundamentally wrong with this community board”, it was just a discernment and not a judgement. I see it that way given the many things that have happened here, and it has not jolted me with any emotional charge. In fact, I have even noticed a pattern, but I didn’t want to share it, since I don’t know whether it is indicative of any underlying truth. I thought sharing at least the above simple discernment in my response to your post was appropriate. I did it only in a loving intention. Hopefully it will have some positive impact. And, I am not attached to the result.

Hope this further clarifies.

With love and trust,
Sundar

Shelley,

If I try to be a little clearer, it seems to me that there is a context for feeling and it is important to feel in that context; thinking will not do the job. There is also a context for thinking and it is important to think in that context, I think; feeling will not do the job, I believe.

It is not easy to identify correctly which one, feeling or thinking, is required in a given context and I think it is easy to mix up the two. Gary’s current quote at the top right of the home page seems to give the guideline – whenever a frightened part such as anger is active, feeling is what is required, not thinking. In an earlier post I referred to the long story of my life. One dominant frightened part in this long story is shouting in anger. I had to understand from Gary’s books that I need to feel what is going on inside me and stop doing, saying and thinking whatever I am engaged in in terms of the anger at the moment. Feeling has been really important in helping me address and continue to address this frightened part and any other.

On the other hand, when it comes to discernment, I believe thinking is required, not feeling. I believe there is nothing to feel in such a context. A correct analysis of the given context is what is critical, I think.

I could be easily wrong. Very eager to hear your valuable comments.

With love and trust,
Sundar

• This reply was modified 7 years, 5 months ago by Sundar Naga.

You said: “It appears that during one’s interactions with others it is essential for one to perform a correct discernment about them, but of course without judging them.”

Who made you the boss of them? Why are you trying to “discern” them? What can you discern about them anyway?

You only have one job – discern yourself. You have all the information you need about yourself, still sometimes, I am sure you will look at your actions from the past and say, wow, that was so stupid, what was I thinking? And you think you can discern about others, for whom you have maybe 5-15-20% information about what pains them, motivates them., energizes them… do you really like wasting your time so much you would invest it in trying to discern something indecipherable?

I remember VP Joe Biden telling a story about a TX senator that everyone hated, who was rough, gruff, uncommunicative, never socialized… one time the senator asked Joe if he was the guy whose wife and kid had been killed in a tractor accident. Asked without an iota of sympathy, in a manner that made Mr Biden want to punch him in the face. And then he learned that the senator had similarly lost all his family in an accident, and the only thing left in the senators life was work.

As you can imagine, Mr Biden had a completely different take on the senator after he learned this. Thinking and discerning would have a pretty slim chance to get him to like or sympathize with such an unlikeable character.

Now, if instead of focusing on discerning others, we focus on our feelings, we may see how we are doing the things we are doing to get us love, but our very actions in the pursuit of getting love are actually turning people away from us.

I wonder if you would accept the challenge to take a recent event in your life, and examine how perhaps your actions might have been taken in the inner hope of winning friends, admiration… and how perhaps the very thing you did to get love has turned someone away from you.

Shelley,

You asked: “How about when you are apathetic, disappointed, depressed, grieving, hurt, impatient, lusting, frustrated, harsh, left behind, livid, lecherous. prideful, scared,….”

You are exactly right!

In the current quote of Gary’s that is still there at the top right of the home page (which I quoted in my post) Gary uses anger only as an example to represent the frightened parts that you have listed above and all the other frightened parts that you have not listed.

I haven’t read your other two posts yet. I will respond, if necessary, after I read them. Thank you so much in advance for your responses.

With love and trust,
Sundar

Shelley,

I just read your first two posts. I am extremely sorry that I didn’t express one thing explicitly when I wrote: “It happens to be a very long story – the story of how my frightened parts have played havoc in various ways in my life, especially basically destroying the relationship between me and one of my closest blood relations … I cannot write the details of my long, long story here, but, the Universe willing, if an opportunity arises, I will share them with you in person. That is all I can say now.”

What I didn’t express explicitly is the important role played by feeling in that long story of mine.

I am not at all against feeling. I am well aware of its significance as explained by Gary in his wonderful book The Heart of the Soul. It is that awareness that has helped me and has been helping me in addressing my frightened parts and has brought about and has been bringing about the unimaginable and unexpected changes in life. I owe everything to Gary for helping me understand the role of the frightened parts in life and the corresponding significance of feeling to achieve the emotional awareness.

So, Shelley, one more time let me repeat categorically to you: I am not at all against feeling. I am well aware of its significance, thanks to Gary.

With love and trust,
Sundar