Hi Ami,

Thank you for your post. If iam understanding this correctly, you have taken a very honest look at your self, you have taken an inventory of what you do,how you do it. This is courage in action. You have also identified what you could do instead. The app s powerful stuff indeed. Congratulations!

What language do you speak? Maybe someone in the community could support you on your native tongue. But keep posting. We will take the tome to decipher what you are saying!

Much love

Shelley

Hi Ami,

Thank you for your powerful and honest sharing. You make so many good points in your sharing that resonate with and motivate me today.

Firstly, it is so inspiring to see you doing the hard work of sitting with your emotions, feeling them. That is my challenge, feeling the emotions. Except for a rush of effervescent currents in my brain when I go from 0 to 100 on the anger scale in under 10 seconds, I don’t recognize much emotion in the rest of my body. So I am proud and a little envious you are so in touch with your feelings, and can feel the currents in various parts of your throat and solar plexus…!

And the wisdom to know that you could intellectually try and figure out the answers, and it would give you some temporary relief, but having the discipline to stay with your emotions is priceless, I would think.

As they say, the only way out is through!

Stay with it, girl, feel your feelings, and see the frightened parts for the false prophets that they are. And do keep sharing, and keep us all motivated to do the same.

And thank you for sharing the video, I just added it to my favorites! And by the way, there is a book by a similar name, Zen Mind, Beginners Mind by Shunryu Suzuki. Also a great book, if you are a reader!

Love,

Shelley

• This reply was modified 6 years, 6 months ago by Shelley P.

Wanted to share a couple more thoughts on importance of sticking to “I” statements.

First, from the perspective of the advanced spiritual partners who are offering advise (will write about learner perspective later) :

Imagine someone saying, “Is that a frightened part of your personality talking?” Period. End of comment.
Vs.
In 1928, (ok, 2008), when I first joined, I had a very similar experience. I was doing this, that the other. Then someone helped me to understand that I was making the other person the enemy because I was afraid they would steal my lunch. It was the fear. So, instead of blaming them, fighting with them, I found this abc solution to bring out my loving part. Is it possible, you may be doing something like that, what can you do to bring out the loving part….?

Oh my! A complete discussion. Note, the partner is not prescribing a solution, but offering up how there might be another alternative, sharing their experience so the learner/newbie does not feel so alone on the journey.

This is not for the benefit of the learner alone. It is actually for the benefit of the advising spiritual partner:
– Fuller and fuller understanding of their own past behaviors, motivations (its an onion, every time you talk, you peel away another layer of the onion)
– You strengthen your practice of bringing out the loving players
– An appreciation for how far you have come (nothing is as motivating as reminders of positive outcomes to continue the hard work of reworking yourself.)
– You get an opportunity to spread Gary’s vision, help people evolve into multi-sensory humans (sharing, reverence for life)
– You get to be a sponsor, spiritual partner, role model (so satisfying, motivating, and now you are role model, you can’t afford to slip slide back!).

Sorry to keep bringing the Anon programs into this forum, but this sponsorship and service aspect I believe is one of the reasons why AA has been the most successful recovery program vs even expensive treatments. Why it continues to flourish more than half a century after Bill Smith and Bob Wilson’s deaths!

So, all you experienced folks, won’t you shine the light for us, won’t you lead the way? It’s only for your own good!

and now I have to go examine why I am writing these long posts, what’s my fear? ?

Hi Sundar, and all Soul Partners,

I too wish more people on this site would share their issues, knowledge, wisdom so we could all learn and grow together. After all, isn’t that a specific goal of Gary’s teachings — a better world with harmony, cooperation, SHARING, and reverence for life?

So, I understand your concern, Sundar, that my calling my share care-taking will further constrict the flow of ideas and information on the site.

Since we are on a journey to understand emotions, let’s explore this care-taking vs. sharing business. I’ll explain my take, please feel free to debate. Though, knowing me, you’ll be on the losing end (oops, is that ego creeping up? :o))

In this case, I had sent out a call to soul partners asking them to share what risks they are taking. Doug told us about the risk he was taking.

I don’t know what his emotions/ motivations were in posting. But let’s imagine for a moment, that he was feeling all good about himself that he was sharing his risk-taking behavior.

One good reaction to that would have been be to thank him for making the community more vibrant by sharing. I mean, come on, he was the only person who shared their risk taking behavior! Thanks, soul partner!

Or, I could have congratulated him for confronting his fear and overcoming it.

Both of these would have been enhancing reactions.

But whooosh! I took the air out of his tires by being all Ms Advising! When no advise was asked for.

I think it may not be a big issue with someone as even keeled as Doug. But there are people who take offense to being advised. And who have in my past taken offense to my advise (ah, perhaps there is a pattern to explore, a frequent player to quieten?)!

Close your eyes and imagine for a moment yourself giving advise. Visualize yourself, the setting, the room, the person to whom you are giving advise. No really, pause for just a brief moment to visualize the scenario.

Most likely, you saw yourself as big, and the person getting advise in a dimunitive position, either sitting down, crouching, a child, a student… hopefully you were not advising Obama, or the queen of England…!

At least this was the case for me when I visualize advise giving — advisor big, recipient small.

So, to me, giving advise seems to be a way for the ego to make itself feel big, more in control, more powerful. That darn tricky sneaky ego!

Continuing to explore emotions and motivations as Gary wants us to do — I would have to admit that there was a part of me that was seeking to find significance, approval, liking… by being helpful. And that is my MO (modus operandi), and has gotten me into relationship trouble in the past.

Another thing caretaking does is take my eyes off myself and my emotions, and focus attention on the other person. So, I don’t have to deal with my introversion, or my loneliness here in a new town.

Ok, does this mean no advise, no sharing, a deafeningly silent quiet community board?

No!

But, I think sharing on the community board does necessitate being aware of a few things:
1. Is the person asking for advise? If not, thank them, welcome them, use a different player.
2. What is your own motive in responding? Are you doing it to avoid focusing on yourself, to gain significance, meaning, to be popular (all external power manifestations)?
3. In the sharing, perhaps, one needs to focus on sharing about how we experienced something similar ourselves, how we are dealing with it now, or how we overcame it in the past. When I read Doug’s posts, I see him doing this well, as well as Stefanie, and Luz…in old posts.
4. Lastly, please please make mistakes! Care take, advise, feed that darn ego…do it all wrong. Perhaps someone will point it out, giving you an opportunity to course correct. After all, you ain’t gonna learn to walk if you ain’t crawled, stumbled, back tracked!
5. And if you are that person who is asking, “is that a fear based response….?” or something difficult like that, maybe the lesson is do it in a way that demonstrates love and caring, and doesn’t come across as snarky. That does shut down conversations.

Thanks for reading! And please do respond, and share your thoughts on distinguishing caring/sharing from care taking, your rules for the board…or anything at all.

Love,

Shelley

Harrumph! Hate all soul partners who provide good advice! ?

Hi Doug,

I understand about the fear of being challenged. I have similar fears. I remember something very powerful that a wise person once told me when I was giving myself a hard time for doing something new badly.

I see your pic here with a child. Remember their first steps? Did they walk perfectly? No, they crawled, they stumbled, they fell. But as they crawled, as they stood up on wobbly little legs, they were building the muscular strength, and even strengthening their bone structure needed to eventually be able to stand up and walk on their legs.

What if they had never tried to crawl until they walked perfectly? Would they ever have walked? We have to do it badly at first to perfect our skills.

I fear that you know this. That I may come across as a know-it-all. But hey, if that is what it sounds like, would be good to know eh? And in the meantime, if it helps someone, anyone, even better, no?

Thank you for your response. It does get lonely when no one responds! And your responses are always, to me, very wise, succinct, and well thought out.

Love,
Shelley

For today, my goal is to check out a Yoga class in the neighborhood. And to make one phone call to a friend of a friend, whose number was provided to me as a starting point for making friends in the area.
What risks are you taking today? Anyone want to play this game?

• This reply was modified 6 years, 7 months ago by Shelley P.