The most powerful experience in human transformation is when falsehood is faced and loved into truth. Falsehood about your limitations. Falsehood about your brilliance and beauty. Falsehood about what’s truly possible for you. Falsehood about your value and your power. Here’s a sound-meme for you that I recorded on a drive with a friend on our way to pizza. It’s the first time I’m sharing one of these, let me know what you think!
The most sacred ground in human relationships is when someone allows you to see both their limitations and their brilliance. A sacred space exists between people when the truth is welcomed and can be freely shared.
In our culture, there seems to be a ton of resistance around weeding out the truth from the false; and then, accepting truth once it’s revealed. Being WILLING to see it (much less name it!) often takes huge courage because it means shattering the walls that have kept us in. And this often means CHANGE.
Embracing and loving another person’s resistance (and your own) is the secret, sacred key to tending our most sacred relationships. This is what I LOVE MOST about every coaching relationship I have. It is a path which we walk together where truth is to be met with resistance, and where truth can be expected to win. This path is homeopathic. It heals us both and frees us together. It requires tremendous trust from both of us. Toward ourselves and toward each other. This trust can be so delicate, yet so incredibly resilient and strong. Like one of those superhuman-strong spider web strings. Woven to more strings like itself, it’s almost unbreakable. (Is that a real thing or did I see it in a superhero movie? I think it’s a real thing that scientists recently created.)
Trust takes time, and it must be earned. And that happens through PERMISSION. When trust is extended and requested, when it is tended to and cared for by both parties, the relationship can withstand the test of time. And joy can grow!
I’m coaching a beautiful woman who is also a dear friend. She asked me for help because someone she loves is trying to communicate with her but she keeps eliciting anger out of him rather than closeness. She keeps trying to justify herself to make him understand where she is coming from, to let him know that she really cares. She wants to advise him, to suggest tools and techniques that can make him feel better. He keeps getting enraged.
Here is my response:
He hasn’t given you PERMISSION to advise him.
Sending helpful tools would enrage him further.
Rule of Relationships:
First, seek to understand.
THEN make sure the person feels understood. (repeat repeat repeat)
THEN AND ONLY THEN seek to be heard.
Otherwise, you won’t be heard. Or understood. You will be perceived as insensitive. He will turn away from you. No amount of meditation or psychological techniques or metaphysical practices can replace this Rule.
Now, to be clear, I’m not always good at this. In fact, sometimes I downright suck at it and sometimes that enrages people. Sometimes, trust is broken. It’s sad when that happens, but I have no regrets. I know who I am. I know that I deeply care. My clients do, too. I am practiced at listening and seeking to understand and they love this about me.
Creating sacred ground is one of the most beautiful arts in the entire universe. I wish many sacred grounds for you. It’s the place where magic happens and dreams are born.
With love,
Happy D!
ps. At our JBL online community, we specifically engage this practice of facing inner resistance and transforming it into freedom. We have a process which helps people become more open, more flexible, more trusting. The result is that they become more available and more receptive to serendipities and joy. We do this in our Wholehearted Mastermind (WHMM) 7-week course.
WHMM is available to people who have completed the JBL 12 Practices, both in the self-study e-book and then again in our online community. That might sound like a lot, but you can easily complete both in a matter of a week. The JBL Treasure Map will show you the trail. The further you sail, the more meaningful conversations you’ll have the opportunity to engage. In the first couple of “islands”, that’s where you get to face your inner resistances about sharing your truth: about being seen, about receiving kind and respectful support and encouragement from others. And learning to give it, too. You also learn to stay in your body and not abandon yourself.
If you’re healing in the aftermath of a narcissistic relationship, the WHMM course can be a very freeing tool for you because you’ll get to practice – on the daily – coming back into your body, back into self-trust, back into an awareness of your true divine nature. Over and over and over again. Join us today. You’re worth it.
Click here to enlarge the map. Click here to get started with the E-book.
Always Remember – YOU Are the Treasure!
Who’s the Treasure?
That’s Right!
With love,
Happy D!
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