Her eyes were moving about the room quickly as she spoke, looking at me, then away, talking fast. We were sitting in my little cottage where she had come for a mini-retreat session to do The Work.
We had three hours together, set up so we could dive in more deeply and uncover a significant stressful experience she had been noticing in her life.
In the middle of telling a story about a neighbor who lived in her condominium complex who irritated the heck out of her, she commented on the calendar on my wall, then mentioned a co-worker who was incredibly annoying in the same way as the neighbor, then said how much she liked the old school desk I have by the entrance to the cottage and asked “do you live here”?
(I nodded yes).
She then said she realized something important about this whole idea of questioning the stories playing in our heads: They’re almost exactly the same.
Her comment struck me as very wise.
On that note, I asked her who her neighbor, and her co-worker, reminded her of? When was it she first found this quality in a human being annoying? When did it first occur to her that someone shouldn’t act they way these two women acted in her life?
Her mom.
I’ve had the same insights before….but the other day, after talking with this fairly new client, I thought I’d take my own inquiry deeper with someone who I know who I found just ever so slightly annoying, not a big major deal.
But it was a quality I had noticed in other people prior to him.
So I thought “this person sure isn’t very significant in my life, we don’t cross paths much, so who else is he reminding me of?”
Oh. Weird. Right.
Dad.
The thing is, I don’t always see the difficult and disturbing qualities I learned about in the presence of my father, because I loved my dad so much, and he’s been gone a long time (almost 25 years).
It’s felt like betrayal, or “rude” to criticize my dad, or to find fault in his actions, words or behaviors. Part of me wanted only the good dad images and memories. I didn’t want to see the parts I found troublesome, or sad, or imperfect.
Plus, the uncomfortable memories of my dad were kind of murky. Not as crystal clear as this acquaintance I found myself criticizing, who just bugged me last week.
Which is what is so great about day to day living.
Anything unfinished, unresolved, any upsetting stories about people in the world you find painful in the past….
….can reappear in your current life.
If you do The Work regularly, you may have already noticed you’ve got the very same kinds of qualities written down that you dislike, over and over again, in other people.
My personal favorites are “neediness” and “controlling”.
I love the question Byron Katie asks from time to time….”when did this thought FIRST occur to you?”
Suddenly I was flashing on a vivid memory of my dad, holding the yellow kitchen phone to his ear with the long yellow cord. He’s saying “Yes, OK…Sure, OK, Yes, Sure, Yes.”
When he hangs up with some force a moment later, he says “Goddamnit! Can’t they find anyone else to volunteer? I’ve been giving so much time, but they’re still bothering me for more!”
I take in this picture of my dad. Upset. Person on the other end of the line making him upset. Don’t say no to people, though….you should say yes (like my dad). Some important reason why NOT saying no is vital.
Now I’ve got a situation to write a Judge Your Neighbor worksheet on. I can find my beliefs about my dad, and also the person on the other end of the phone line he was speaking to. I can discover what I began to believe right in that moment, what I set up as true.
Awesome…..let’s get to work, undoing the suffering, thinking I knew what was going on when my dad was upset, and how people “should” act, and what “shouldn’t” be happening.
Maybe I didn’t know. Maybe nothing’s set in stone.
(And as Byron Katie says….”drop the maybe”).
Much love,
Grace