Best. People. Ever. Signing up for Year of Inquiry.
Yesterday, I spoke with someone asking about the partnering thing I mention we do. As in….you have a choice of zero partnering,casual partnering, or immersion partnering.
And what, pray tell, is “immersion partnering”?
This is what the inquirer wanted to know.
First of all, just in case you don’t know…..”partnering” means you are paired with someone else in Year of Inquiry (by moi) and you connect with that person to trade facilitation in The Work.
Actually, you can partner in The Work with anyone, any time. I worked with one lovely woman for 2 years, weekly, both of us facilitating one another through worksheet after worksheet, discovery upon discovery. It was a brilliant sharing of our lives, honestly, together.
One person facilitates, one person does The Work, then you switch roles.
I always have people connect for partnering in my programs, because you get to know each other so very, very well that way. You learn about your own process, you find acceptance for yourself as you reveal your judgments or hear someone else’s. It’s an awesome experience.
Except.
When what you’re hearing hurts, or feels scary. Or the person starts to bug you.
A flash back.
One of my sisters has attended the School for The Work. It’s why I went a few months later, after she reported such immense learning, and came back smiling from ear to ear.
But I don’t feel so close to her, even though we are two School graduates.
We had a major upset about ten years earlier, when I went to visit her across country (to the east coast) with my newborn baby and my then-husband.
Things didn’t go so well back then for that trip. We had a fantastic greeting on day one, enjoyable day two, but then something started going awry on day three, day four. I was irritable, couldn’t sleep well with a nursing baby. My sister had plans for us and I felt like it was impossible to keep to the schedule. My husband was uncomfortable on the futon. Disappointment. Fatigue. Not talking it through. Tension.
My then-husband, me and our baby caught a plane home early.
The whole relationship felt different. What was once super close, now felt immensely distant.
We didn’t speak for a long time. I avoided it. I felt awful. I felt tense. I was sad but didn’t know how to bring up the “problem” which got older and older as time passed.
Then we both within months, as I said, attended the School for The Work.
Ring, ring, ring.
“Hello?”
“It’s your sister. I’m wondering if we can break through what’s been going on for ten years between us, and talk about it.”
Hearts beating. This is scary. Intimacy.
“Agreed”.
We made arrangements to get together in person, for four hours,(I’m pretty sure I said I thought two would be fine) and write worksheets on each other that we would read out loud, and the other one would then facilitate.
Wow.
I thought about the upcoming meeting with nervousness and hope for days before it happened. I felt excited, and terrified. And I knew it was a good thing, at the deepest level.
Before my sister came over to my house, I wrote about three worksheets, noticing my urge to edit what I put there. I wasn’t so great at the time at staying in one situation. I included moments from childhood, I skipped to the time of the terrible visit (ten years in the past now). I chose not to swear, I felt too frightened anyway. I felt a weird mixture of wanting to be completely honest, but wanting to not go overboard or freak out or be enraged. No way.
Despite the carefulness, there was truth on that worksheet. Honest pain and hurt, and saying so.
Her worksheet on me was honest, too.
To get through this wild ride of exposing our inner thoughts about the other, we copied what we had seen Byron Katie do with people when they do The Work on each other up on stage. One person reads their worksheet, looks up, says “I am ____ with YOU, because _____”. The reader gets eye contact. The listener says “thank you.”
Yep. We did that.
I said “thank you” to my younger sister who said something on her worksheet like “I’m angry with you because you got the best of everything, first. I’m angry with you for being so mean to me when I was a kid. I’m angry with you for being so immature about communicating honestly”.
I don’t remember what she said, exactly, but it stung. And it was true….that’s what I remember.
She was right.
We spent four hours facilitating each other, back and forth. It was one of the most intimate, frightening, wonderful, painful experiences I’ve ever had.
Now that’s some serious partnering.
Immersion partnering, has a few tones that are similar.
The people electing to partner with this kind of depth get to capture their judgments about the facilitation and partnering process they’ve just experienced, on paper.
This can be any petty judgments about being asked questions or the way the process unfolded, or the cadence of someone’s voice as they facilitate. These are the kinds of things we grow up being told to NEVER under ANY circumstance say out loud. The little criticisms saying “I don’t like this”.
Since the two partners are usually not family members or close friends (before Year Of Inquiry that is….after YOI they sure might be)….the concepts captured on a Judge Your Neighbor worksheet may seem much less intense than the ones I wrote about my sister, or she wrote about me.
And yet….the same concerns exist between people who don’t know each other well as for people who know and love each other very deeply.
Can I speak what’s true, and not be cut off from love? Can I be honest and safe?
I’m here to say…..yes.
In fact, speaking what’s true for you, even when you’re terrified, can bring you closer to love, and safer than you ever imagined. That’s the funny part.
It can bring you closer to yourself.
No one in Year of Inquiry has to do this immersion level partnering, and anyone can opt-out any time, for periods when they’re away, or need a break, or have lots happening in their lives.
People are free to opt for Zero Partnering. This works, too. You simply want to be facilitated, and find your own answers, and pairing up with others is a bit much for now–you have some deep work to do.
Casual level partnering is the kind I did over two years with the amazing woman I connected with weekly. You bring your Judge Your Neighbor worksheet to the session, you choose how long you’re meeting, and you each get a turn facilitating and being facilitated on a difficult situation in your life. You can do this once a month, or four times a month, it doesn’t matter.
What I like about the people in Year of Inquiry is they test out the waters and try on what’s right for themselves, and they are in all walks of life and all places of experience with The Work.
We’re supporting and moving in this journey together, questioning the stressed out mind and the perspective that sees the water glass as half empty, rather than half full.
No “right” or “wrong” with how we’re doing it. Ever.
And you know what?
I am sooooo very close to that same sister I did The Work with. It’s absolutely awesome. I can trust her to be honest. There’s no wondering what she’s thinking. She shows up. I admire her so much. I feel happy in her presence.
There are still 8 days until Orientation for Year of Inquiry on September 1st. Three more spots make the ideal full YOI. Is one of them yours?
“We’re all children when we believe unquestioned, nursery-school thoughts. ‘He doesn’t like me.’ ‘He’s a bad person.’ ‘It’s not fair.’ ‘I need to be punished.’ ‘ I’ll cry to get what I want.’ ‘I’m a victim.’ ‘You are my problem.’….Have you graduated yet?” ~ Byron Katie in I Need Your Love–Is That True?
Year of Inquiry: a profound commitment
Much love, Grace