There have been many discussions of new ways of communicating. I’d like to add to that discussion, drawing on my experience of the growth movement of the Seventies.
I’d like to illustrate here one element in the way we used to communicate – what we’d have termed “calling yourself on your own number.”
Usually we hide what we’re up to. But the growth movement encouraged us to share everything, especially the things we didn’t want to share. It was very empowering to be all cleaned out.
So I’m about to call myself on a number I’m running, which I just glimpsed.
I saw it through the filter Werner Erhard provided in the est Training. He talked about stages of character development. You may feel reactivated by one of the names, but he meant it clinically, technically.
He described a stage called “disloyalty.” At this stage we judge. We gossip. We’re always on the lookout for something better.
I saw myself being disloyal and raised it to awareness.
I’m not talking about serious, off-with-your-head disloyalty. This is relatively small, everyday stuff here.
What happened was this:
President Trump was rumored to have fired Sidney Powell. When I first heard the news, I was shocked. I heard myself say, “There are limits to my loyalty.” Hearing myself say that, I was shocked a second time. I looked at other areas of my life and noticed a similar lack of strong commitment, a willingness to leave a “lost cause” or “sinking ship.”
Of course the fact that one may be being disloyal is something that’s usually denied, kept well hidden, ruled out of bounds for discussion.
When I asked my mind to mirror back to me the original incident that underlay this vein of (mild) disloyalty, (1) I heard the sentence: “I don’t need anybody.” And I flashed on my Dad kicking me under the table at dinner time.
The conclusion I reached was “You can’t win around this man.” The decision I reached was “I’m not letting him close to me.” Gradually that became “I’m not letting anyone close to me.” And still later: “I don’t need anyone.”
That’s not fertile ground for loyalty to grow in.
I allow myself to experience whatever arises as a result of locating the original incident. (2)
I see myself avoiding contact, staying away from people.
This all dovetails with my seemingly-lifelong commitment to being a writer, a communicator. A person doing this job needs ample free time for research, reflection, etc. So it played into my mission.
Alright, I’ve raised this element of my repertoire to awareness. I can do no more with it at the moment but I don’t need to. Now that I recognize what it looks, sounds, and feels like, it’ll be difficult to run this number again without laughing at myself. I’m aware of it now.
***
I continue to watch and notice that I also have a side that’s very loyal. What’s common to both of them is that they exist on the extremes, not in the middle where balance and groundedness lie.
This means something…. Why am I ungrounded in the area of loyalty?
Because I never bonded with my Father. Or if I did, I broke every bond I created after a kick or a slap or a shout.
Here’s another area for reparenting. I need to provide for myself the missing experience of bondedness. No sense waiting for the outside world to do it for me; I need to assume the adult side of me and reparent the wounded child.
I look deeper. If I haven’t developed bonding with the male side of life, and I already know I’m defensive, even hostile, what does all this point to?
What level of social development would I assign myself to? Clearly, it’d have to be at looking out for Number One – that is, Self-servingness.
That being the bigger picture, I take the puzzle piece called “disloyalty” and see if it fits anywhere. And yes, it does fit. The two go together. Disloyalty is born of self-servingness.
***
And now I’ve “shared” about it, which is the final step in this way of communicating. Not lecturing, advising, praising ourselves, etc., but sharing our own experience, what we learned from it, how it has affected us.
In this case, I called myself on my own number of disloyalty. Why wait for someone else to do it? And, yes, I’m still living. I didn’t die from it. Sharing can be this easy. (3) It’s scarey before we do it and a relief after.
In my view, we have to free ourselves from our addiction to combative, controlling, right/wrong communication patterns. This way of communicating is one alternative.
And, yes, I’m trying to develop a lexicon of communication. I’d like us all to communicate by taking personal responsibility for everything we think, feel, do and remember. It truly works whereas blame and shame do not.
I love the awareness path. It pays dividends in increased joy, bliss, love, peace, and harmony. Not in some distant future either, but right here, right now.
Footnotes
(1) I’m running the upset clearing process on the triggered issue. See “How to Handle Unwanted Feelings: The Upset Clearing Process,” April 25, 2011, at https://goldenageofgaia.com/2011/04/25/how-to-handle-unwanted-feelings-the-upset-clearing-process/
Also: Vasanas: Preparing for Ascension by Clearing Old Issues at https://goldenageofgaia.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Vasanas-Preparing-for-Ascension-R8.pages.pdf
(2) I’m working with the vasana using every tool available to me. At times I ask the mind to give me information the same way we ask “Siri.” At times I make a logical deduction and see if it fits. I’ll know if it’s the truth from the release of tension: The truth will set me free. But I keep burrowing into the vasana and “being with” whatever arises.
(3) We used to think of ourselves as comparing notes, comparing experiences. I don’t talk about you; I talk about me. You don’t talk about me; you talk about you. And we go deeper and deeper into who we are, together, unfolding, revealing, showing up.