Oh rats.
The other day I screwed up big time.
If there was a camera in the room, or you were a fly on the wall, I’d be soooooo embarrassed.
I got angry with my 19 year old daughter.
I was on skype on my computer, working with a client. She entered the room, gesturing wildly, looming over me and obviously very frustrated. I couldn’t figure out what she was trying to ask. She grabbed a piece of paper and wrote things aggressively on it. She tapped the paper hard.
I squeezed my eyes shut, looked down at my computer keyboard, and kept going with my client.
She was still there five minutes later.
Still there.
I glanced up, her teeth clenched, eyes burning a hole into my head.
She was NOT getting the message that I should be left ALONE.
Thank goodness the client I was working with was audio only, not video. It was like a thing inside me went ballistic and exploded and I screamed at her. OK, it wasn’t really a scream, but it was like a vicious hiss without sound. I was mouthing the words.
GET OUT OF HERE! NOW!!
Now I was gesturing wildly pointing my finger at the door. Flailing around like a nut case.
OUT! OUT! GET! OUT!
Inside it felt like World War III.
She left, and slammed the front door.
Later, as I walked through The Work with my reaction, focusing on that powerful moment, when I got to the turnarounds, I knew this was one of those pieces of work where action needs to happen.
The Living Turnaround.
I’m preparing curriculum on this very topic for the upcoming Breitenbush retreat, only two weeks away.
(By the way, there are four spots left at Breitenbush Hotsprings Annual Retreat June 22-26. This is the last year with the deeply experienced and supportive assistance of Susan Beekman, also Certified Facilitator, who has come with me every single year since we started offering this workshop together in 2011. I’ll probably be doing it in 2017, but she’s retiring).
Finding your own personal Living Turnarounds is very powerful, and sometimes tricky. It doesn’t come so easy.
Because it’s nice to do The Work and everything, and imagine dropping thoughts, changing uncomfortable ideas to exciting ideas, switching things into the positive from what was before feeling negative, watching stress release itself from your mind and heart.
But if it stays up in the head as an intellectual or purely cognitive exercise, without sinking down into the body and into our every move…
…then, well…it’s not really transformative.
Not that we can exactly control transformation (haha) because if we could, we’d all be completely and entirely transformed by now. All foibles and imperfections shaved off and smoothed down. Goals reached, accomplishments made, projects achieved, relationships resolved.
No tantrums and waving arms about in fury.
Sigh. Chuckle.
So how DO we live our turnarounds, or discover more specifically our “living turnarounds”?
Well lets just say as a wild example, you do The Work on the stressful belief “she should NOT f$%&ing interrupt me!!!”
Your turnarounds are the following (without the cussing):
- she should interrupt me
- I shouldn’t interrupt myself
- I shouldn’t interrupt her
If I lived the turnaround “I shouldn’t interrupt her” I asked myself what comes to mind?
I suddenly realized she didn’t know how on alert I felt, and a little nervous, because this was a brand new client I was working with, who wasn’t super familiar with The Work, who just got diagnosed with cancer.
I was thinking about my own cancer diagnosis. I was also aware this was a private call, and she didn’t know I had a client in the first place, and I felt embarrassed about having my kid walk into the room.
The Living Turnaround became very clear. Crystal clear.
I shouldn’t interrupt my love for my daughter, I shouldn’t interrupt my love for myself. I shouldn’t get so freaked out with trying to help the client, or feel overly-responsible to the client so that I can’t handle one small interruption. I shouldn’t interrupt myself with my attempt to be the perfect facilitator, who doesn’t have interruptions.
Trust the universe. Including an interrupting daughter.
I shouldn’t interrupt Reality, and try to make it go MY way.
I knew how to live the turnaround. I owed her an explanation, an apology, and to let her know when I have a client scheduled, if I know she’s coming home.
I hardly had to wait to find a good time to live the turnaround. It was already happening within, on the inside of myself. I no longer felt any of that rage and anger. I saw there was other work to do about clients with cancer….and my empathetic thoughts about them (this is for another Grace Note).
The next morning at 6:45 am, daughter called from her dad’s house to ask me something. After we got the basic logistical thing handled she was asking, I said “you know yesterday, when I was so incredibly furious with you? Well, I’m so sorry. Here’s what was going on for me in that moment…..”
I was super honest, vulnerable and very sincere. I left nothing out. I spoke of my nervousness before she ever came in.
At the end, I said “I love you so much”.
She said “I love you too, mom”.
And you know what? She didn’t interrupt me once.
“You can find the truth only when you go inside. Going outside for a solution, trying to convince her to see it your way, is war. Fear is blind and deaf.” ~ Byron Katie in 1000 Names For Joy
Much love,
Grace