Close, connected, real, honest conversation is one of the most joyful or energizing experiences humans can have.
People speaking what they really think and feel, and asking questions of another, and saying what is hard to reveal or what’s actually going on in their lives can be life-shifting.
Really….one conversation can have such a powerful affect on someone, they may decide to change something big in their lives, or feel inspired to move in a direction only previously imagined.
This essence of genuine, vulnerable sharing has been something human beings do with each other perhaps since they first came into existence.
And humans also hold back what they are thinking, feeling, wondering. They hold back asking questions or bringing up hard topics.
For me, when I’ve had a difficult time saying something to someone that I really do want to say, or asking a question I’d really love to know the answer to….it’s usually got something to do with these beliefs:
- I could be rejected
- I could hurt the other person’s feelings
- If I hurt the other person’s feelings, they might leave or hate me—see #1.
Oh horrors! I might produce anger, disappointment, sadness, frustration or fear in that other person! They might produce the same inside of me!
I jest….but it feels like a gigantic risk when these big troubling feelings could happen and BECAUSE of these feelings, you could be rejected.
One of my favorite authors and wise-guys, Anthony DeMello, said that he discovered inside himself that he had this kind of relationship with God (whatever God was for him).
He wanted God’s love, attention, care…and thought there was a risk of losing these things.
But being the defiant and interesting Jesuit priest he was, he decided to talk with God and tell him that he didn’t need him. Even though this was the opposite approach he had grown up with and always been taught.
“If I need you to make me happy, I’ve got to use you, I’ve got to manipulate you, I’ve got to find ways and means of winning you. I cannot let you be free. I can only love people when I have emptied my life of people. When I die to the need for people, then I’m right in the desert. In the beginning it feels awful, it feels lonely, but if you can take it for a while, you’ll suddenly discover that it isn’t lonely at all. Is is solitude, it is aloneness, and the desert begins to flower.”~ Tony DeMello
So I question the belief “being rejected is terrible” first of all….and then the belief “I am being rejected”. I mean, I have to assume I’m being rejected first, and THEN that it’s a bad thing, a terrible thing, and something to avoid!
It’s terrible if someone doesn’t like me, rages at me, attacks me, is rude….it’s terrible if they become scared of me and run away, or feel ashamed because of some interaction with me, or vanish.
Is that true? Am I sure it’s terrible? Am I sure that they are indeed rejecting ME?
No. Their strong emotions may show that they are challenged by something that has nothing to do with me. They might be too freaked out to hear what I’m saying, they might be upset by something that has occurred in their past, they might feel defensive because they are uncertain and insecure.
How they are acting MEANS something bad…rejection, non-acceptance, abandonment, danger.
How about the Universe? If upsetting, difficult things happen in the world, surrounding me, does it mean I am bad, wrong, rejected, abandoned?
Is it true that I need God (or the Universe, if you prefer) to love me, and that I need to earn this love and make sure I’m not rejected? OR ELSE.
Pema Chodron speaks of this huge desire to be loved and not rejected. In Buddism, it is called “shenpa”.
“Somebody says a mean word to you and then something in you tightens – that’s the shenpa. Then it starts to spiral into low self-esteem, or blaming them, or anger at them, denigrating yourself. And maybe if you have strong addictions, you just go right for your addiction to cover over the bad feeling that arose when that person said that mean word to you. This is a mean word that gets you, hooks you. Another mean word may not affect you but we’re talking about where it touches that sore place – that’s a shenpa.” ~Pema Chodron
The freedom that can come forth by questioning the belief that you need acceptance, or that you’re not getting it, is astonishing.
Who would you be without the thought that you need anyone else’s love, including God’s love?
What if you already have all the love you need?
You may enjoy those beautiful, deep, authentic, loving conversations even more. The people who can really have them with you, in this moment in time, may appear with open arms.
If someone runs for the hills….it’s not personal. Love is everywhere. It is in them leaving, it is in their strong caustic-sounding words, it is alive and passionate in every moment.
Even this quiet one, with no one else in the room.
“If you realize that you have enough, you are truly rich. If you stay in the center and embrace death with your whole heart, you will endure forever.”~Tao Te Ching #33
Love, Grace